Businessman and former ambassador Earle Mack is the man behind a super PAC created to draft House Speaker Paul Ryan to run for the Republican presidential nomination,
The New York Times reports.
Mack, who was ambassador to Finland in the George W. Bush administration, told the newspaper that he plans to spend as much as $1 million to support "The Committee to Draft Speaker Ryan," a new super PAC that was launched last week.
Mack told the Times he is not making the move out of any animosity toward GOP front-runner and fellow New York businessman Donald Trump.
"I've never had any fights with him," Mack said. "Our parents were friendly. Fred Trump used my father's contractors to build his house."
But Mack feels Trump is not the man to reclaim the White House for Republicans.
"It all comes down to winning the election, not dividing our party, and I think that this presidential election has descended into more of a schoolyard scuffle."
Ryan has shown no support for the effort to draft him to run, but Mack says the super PAC has decided to go forward with the campaign anyway.
"He is flattered, but not interested," Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in an email on Friday,
Fortune reports.
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