However, PR slip aside, it looks as though McCarthy will be the man to succeed Boehner as Speaker of the House. He has worked against government waste and abuse, and his uncompromising style would be a welcome addition to a Republican leadership that so far has done little with its power to make any meaningful change in Washington. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy certainly deserved consideration, but failed his first big test. But if he doesn’t have the right stuff, who does? That’s why I’ve offer myself as a candidate to try to bridge that divide.
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Speaking last month on CBS’s “Face the Nation”, before the latest default drama developed, Boehner said, “I don’t want to leave my successor a dirty barn”. That’s why I’ve entered this race.
But Webster still expects to be nominated among a slate of candidates for Thursday’s showdown vote within the GOP ranks. I hope it’s me. “So I’m trying to persuade my colleagues, let’s avoid that fight, that embarrassment and the internal strife”. Kevin McCarthy has admitted as much. It still can’t get to 218.
Asked who he supports, Farenthold said, “it’s something that I’m praying on, a lot of other members are praying on”. That’s when conservatives will have their leverage, because McCarthy will be able to lose fewer than 30 votes to come out the victor.
Scalise says he already has a majority of the caucus supporting his bid for majority leader, while Price has the inside track on the whip post. That doesn’t signal change.
Chaffetz, in his pitch to members asking for support, says rank-and-file members will have a voice if he’s speaker and that committees will again be entrusted to draft, amend and pass legislation that will go to the floor for a vote.
“We are entrusted with the largest majority the Republicans have ever had since Babe Ruth was swinging a baseball bat”, Chaffetz said during his official announcement on “Fox News Sunday”.
Chaffetz also suggested he was a better communicator than McCarthy.
McCarthy and the candidates for lower-rung jobs have been addressing such questions head-on in a leadership race that’s featured unusually public soul-searching about the state of House Republicans. Ryan, chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, put out a statement backing McCarthy, calling him an “effective leader”. It’s no accident that the top GOP presidential candidates have no political experience. Even though McCarthy helped build the Republican majority in Congress, he suffers from the same anti-establishment wave that is driving both parties into the arms of outsiders in this cycle.
In morning TV interviews, he spoke of uniting House Republicans with “a new culture” that listens to all voices and yet has “the courage to lead in the end”. And we are going to hang it up on the wall as a warning to the rest of you. Meanwhile, Chaffetz can certainly get more pugilistic by passing standalone bills for the GOP agenda and demand that the Senate force Obama to veto those.
But there will be a three-week gap between the closed-door nominating process and the actual election of the next Speaker on the House floor. It would clarify the stakes for 2016 while still providing responsible governance.
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In the speakership election this time around, Democrats, as the minority party typically does, can be expected to all vote for Democrats.
