Some people think Democrats did themselves a favor by LOSING the US House, eh?
If a Martian arrived in Washington this week not knowing who had won the November election, he’d be forgiven for thinking it was the Democrats. Usually the losers are in disarray, but not this time.
Democrats in the House minority have completed a seamless change of House leadership to a younger generation with little internal dissent. But Republicans, who ostensibly won the majority, can’t even find the votes to elect a GOP Speaker, much less agree on budget strategy or much of anything else.
After the election, Kevin McCarthy won the GOP caucus vote to become House GOP leader against Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, 188-31. But Mr. Biggs won’t take resounding defeat for an answer, and he is now planning to run against Mr. McCarthy for Speaker on the House floor on Jan. 3. A handful of other backbenchers say they’ll also oppose Mr. McCarthy, which could lead to multiple ballots and perhaps even a Democratic Speaker.
What’s bizarre is that the dissenters don’t have major policy differences with Mr. McCarthy or a plausible alternative candidate for Speaker. Mr. Biggs has no chance. He and his rump group also don’t seem to have any constructive reason to oppose Mr. McCarthy beyond a desire to grab the media spotlight or blow everything up.
Their main demand is so self-defeating it could have come from Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The dissenters want Mr. McCarthy to concede that any Member could call the chair vacant and insist on a vote to replace the sitting Speaker. In order to get the votes to become Speaker, Mr. McCarthy is supposed to weaken himself so much that he wouldn’t be able to govern as Speaker.
Yet a narrow GOP majority of only 222-213 requires a leader who can enforce party discipline. That’s how Nancy Pelosi has been able to govern with the mirror-image majority in the last two years. Too many House Republicans are too dimwitted to understand the uses of power and how to wield it. They’d rather rage against the machine to no useful effect…
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Donald Trump told Breitbart that the conservatives currently withholding support from House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy in McCarthy’s speakership bid need to stand down.
Said Trump: “I think it’s a very dangerous game that’s being played. It’s a very dangerous game. Some bad things could happen.”
He added: “Look, we had Boehner and he was a strange person but we ended up with Paul Ryan who was ten times worse. Paul Ryan was an incompetent speaker. I think he goes down as the worst speaker in history.“
image…CNN