Tim Ryan’s ‘Moderate’ Con in the Ohio Senate Race

Mr. Ryan’s strategy is plain. As the Washington Post observed in its roundup of last Monday’s debate between the two candidates, Mr. Ryan sought to frame the race as “a choice between a moderate and an extremist.”

If that sounds familiar, it is the same way

Joe Biden

now casts himself against those who voted for Mr. Trump. You could even say Mr. Ryan, 49, is his generation’s Mr. Biden. Both claim their values were forged by the old industrial towns where they grew up—Scranton, Pa., for Mr. Biden, and around Youngstown, Ohio, for Mr. Ryan. Both men also have Irish-Catholic roots, and both clearly enjoy retail politics.

One more thing. Both men have abandoned a key position that once helped define moderate Democrats: pro-life on abortion. Describing Mr. Biden’s switcheroo in 2019, the

New York Times

acknowledged his claim that he had evolved morally but noted “his shifting views also reflect a political calculation about the changing mores of his party.”

Ditto for Mr. Ryan, who was even more pro-life than Mr. Biden was when he wrote a January 2015 op-ed for the Akron Beacon Journal announcing he was now against any limits. No doubt Mr. Ryan’s shifting views also reflected the party’s changing mores—especially in Washington, where pro-life Democrats are going the way of the dodo.

It’s true that Mr. Ryan’s tone is far more affable and reasonable than that of

Nancy Pelosi

or

Bernie Sanders.

Like the president, Mr. Ryan appreciates that Republicans have poached the allegiance of many working class voters who see today’s Democratic Party as hostile to their values and interests—and he says he’s the man to get them back. He’s also complained he hasn’t received the support from the national party he needs to pull it out in Ohio.

Knowing he will need the votes not only of Ohioans who voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 but those who will vote for popular GOP Gov.

Mike DeWine

in November (up 18 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average), Mr. Ryan says he has taken on his own party throughout his career. But there is less here than meets the eye. True, he opposed some of

Barack Obama’s

trade deals and supported Mr. Trump’s protectionist policies. But Democrats aren’t exactly pushing free trade, and Mr. Vance has almost identical views on these issues.

Perhaps Mr. Ryan’s greatest claim to being a moderate is his run for House minority leader against Nancy Pelosi in 2016. Again he touts it as his willingness to buck his own party leaders. But when it comes to actual votes, he hasn’t done much bucking, voting with Mrs. Pelosi—and Mr. Biden—100% of the time.

These votes are a telling measure. Because where Mr. Ryan has come out in opposition to Mr. Biden, it’s almost always where it makes no difference because Mr. Biden and Mrs. Pelosi don’t need his vote.

Mr. Ryan, for example, has criticized Mr. Biden’s student-loan forgiveness. But because this was done by executive action, not legislation, Mr. Ryan’s objection is cost-free. In like manner, Mr. Ryan has called for Mr. Biden not to run again and declined to have the president appear with him on the campaign. But again he’s not bucking his party; most Democrats don’t want Mr. Biden on the 2024 ballot.

The American people have seen the moderate Democrat act before. Remember

Bart Stupak

and other moderates holding up ObamaCare in 2010—until they folded?

Or Rep.

Conor Lamb,

who won in 2018 as an anti-Pelosi Democrat but who now votes 100% with Mr. Biden (FiveThirtyEight.com) and 100% with Mrs. Pelosi (ProPublica). Or Sens.

Joe Manchin

and

Kyrsten Sinema,

who mounted a brave effort against President Biden’s spending only to capitulate in the end.

This is the reality of moderate Democrats. In the end, if the party needs their votes, they cave. Mr. Ryan is a reliable yea on the Biden agenda, voting for every bit of the president’s trillions in spending. And he’s promising to vote to kill the filibuster if he makes it to the Senate, hardly a moderate position.

In a recent interview with Politico, Mr. Ryan promised that as a senator “he would be a royal pain in the a—” for

Chuck Schumer.

But if Mr. Ryan’s record with Mrs. Pelosi is any guide, the Senate majority leader doesn’t have anything to worry about. It’s just for show.

Write to mcgurn@wsj.com.