Charlie Sykes has known U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Janesville) before he was first elected to represent the First Congressional District, and now as the person second in line to the presidency:

Over the next few days, commentators who do not dwell in the fever swamps of Ann Coulterism, will note that Paul Ryan will (a) be the most conservative speaker in recent history, and (b) has risen on the strength of his unusual combination of policy wonkishness and principle.Matthew Continetti recalls how unlikely his ascension would have seemed only a few years ago. In the wake of the 2008 electoral debacle, Ryan stepped forward with what seemed an almost quixotic idea – a blueprint of conservative reform.

The GOP was approaching a nadir—unpopular, exhausted, in the minority. What did Ryan do? He authored the first version of his budget, the Roadmap for America’s Future. He called for spending and tax cuts, changes to Social Security and Medicare.

He became the unofficial GOP spokesman for free markets and fiscal restraint. No one ordered him to do this. He alone among House Republicans took the initiative, much like his hero Jack Kemp had done in the 1970s…

His colleagues were curious about the plan, how to discuss it with their constituents. Ryan taught them the details. His dissection of Obamacare as Obama sat glaring before him made Ryan a viral video star.

By 2011, his ideas – once derided by the beltway and GOP establishment – had become official GOP policy. Because Ryan was willing to embrace policy innovation and political risk – and because he was willing to lead on both — he was able to remake the GOP into “the party of spending restraint, tax cuts, and entitlement reform.”

Despite dire warnings that Ryan was seducing his party into touching the Third Rail of American politics, Republicans have won congressional majorities in three consecutive elections. Ryan himself was tapped to be Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate and, as the recent Draft Ryan movement made clear, he remains one of the GOP’s most compelling figures.

Like Jack Kemp, he has emerged as an intellectual leader of his party, while still being its most attractive spokesman. As Speaker, he will also inevitably be compared to Newt Gingrich, but Ryan presents a far different face of conservatism and the distinction is crucial. Gingrich was a deeply flawed leader, prone to political tangents and often prey to his own restless and undisciplined imagination. Ryan is not.

Ryan’s most important quality tends to be overlooked by the political class, but is easily recognized back home: he is a fundamentally decent human being. In the age of Trump and Clinton, this is saying something.

As evidenced by its embrace of Trump, such decency does not play well with the Rush/Levin/Drudge/Ingraham conservative media axis. His insistence on protecting his family time was derided by some as a sign of his unseriousness, but it undoubtedly struck a chord among many who do not believe that politics is the sum of our human identity.

This makes Ryan something of a unicorn in American politics, an officeholder who says he wants to spend more time with his family… and actually means it. Having lost his own father, Ryan is determined to be a father who is present in his own children’s lives and is willing to curtail his power in order to make that happen. No one who knows Ryan doubts his sincerity or the depth of his commitment to that non-political part of his life.

This fundamental decency also explains, at least in part, why his colleagues rallied around him so decisively, ignoring the nattering and browbeating from the activist media and “Scam Pacs.” His colleagues, who know him and have worked with him for years, clearly respect, trust, and like him. Given the toxicity of modern congressional politics, this is itself a remarkable feat.

They know him to be intellectually curious and sincere in attempting to apply his ideas to seemingly intractable problems, like the national debt and the impending entitlement crunch. More recently, he has been willing to step into the intellectual vacuum that has developed within conservatism on the issue of poverty. Here again, his fundamental decency is on display.

His attempt to wrestle with conservative approaches to poverty is politically risky, but also a fascinating departure for a political figure who had helped popularize the notion of “makers and takers.” Ryan openly admitted that he was rethinking his ideas, recognizing that the War on Poverty was a demonstrable failure, but that conservatives were not offering a plausible alternative. His plan is certainly not without flaws and there are areas that deserve conservative skepticism. But the key point is that Ryan was willing to address the issue at all by opening himself to new ideas, perspective and experiences.

Quick: name another American political figure who is willing to admit his fallibility like this or display his openness to ideological innovation. What leading progressive has challenged his co-ideologues to rethink or reconsider the agenda of the left? What figure is likely to do so in the near future?

If you are unclear what makes Paul Ryan tick, watch this video, in which he discusses his visit to Cleveland with neighborhood activist Bob Woodson:

Robert Woodson: Why do you care?

Ryan: it’s something I’ve always cared about, but that visit that you I had that day in Cleveland really touched a chord with me and it rekindled within me a desire to learn more. I think we’ve gotten so swelled up with these fights in Washington … that we sort of forgot about listening to people who are actually making a difference, who are actually fighting poverty successfully, who are showing though the example of their lives how we can do a better job of helping people. I come from Janesville Wisconsin, and I’ve met a lot of folks struggling, it opened my eyes to a whole new set of struggles that people have gone through.But in learning and hearing those stories, I also learned about the triumph of actually overcoming those challenges and how wonderful that is. People who had gone through the worst of all situations came through those situations and redeemed themselves and are helping make other people do the same thing. What I got you that day in Cleveland was to me an inspiration and a calling and I want to see if I can take this feeling and translate it into better lessons learned, so that we can translate that into better action.

If House of Cards accurately reflected American political life, Paul Ryan would likely be the last person to ever become Speaker of the House. But this week he will take the gavel, a sign that we sometimes get better than we deserve.

This must drive Wisconsin liberals almost as insane with range as Gov. Scott Walker does. Imagine a Republican who tries to help the poor, but not through the usual (and unsuccessful) top-down government-knows-all approaches.

Some conservatives Sykes lists aren’t happy with Ryan either. They appear to forget that, in case they haven’t noticed, there is a Democrat in the White House, and Democrats controlled the Senate until last year. Most voters regardless of party or ideology want government to improve their lives (something Barack Obama either doesn’t or won’t realize); they do not want to see government dismantled and replaced with nothing.