Wow. I did not see this coming. I mean it was obvious that this guy is totally unqualified to be Speaker. But the consensus was that it was his job whether he wanted to or not.
UPDATE: On CNN Trent Franks of Arizona is blaming GOP House dysfunction on Senate Democrats-not House Democrats, Senate Democrats. Talk about passing the buck.
This has been my diagnosis on the whole McCarthy syndrome: the GOP is fundamentally opposed to governing, not just Democratic governing but they eat their own leaders.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/some-vote-of-confidence-dick-cheney.html
How can they blame the Democrats when the GOP House and GOP Senate can't get along? But it's worse than that: the House GOP can't get along with itself.
Now Franks is demanding GOP Senate do away with the filibuster.
"CNN and other news outlets are reporting that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has dropped out of the race for House speaker, facing resistance from hardliners in the Republican caucus."
"Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) told CNN that the nomination conference, scheduled for Thursday, had been postponed. He said McCarthy felt he had the votes for Thursday's closed-door nomination, but was concerned he would not have the 218 votes when the nomination would be brought to a full House later this month."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mccarthy-drops-out
John King puts it well. We have a hostage situation in the GOP House.
"Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said during a press conference on Fox News that McCarthy will continue to stay on as majority leader. He added that neither of the other two candidates -- Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) -- had close to McCarthy's support, so House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has opened the election up for more candidates."
"Kevin McCarthy will be the most important endorsement for whoever ultimately becomes the speaker," Issa said.
The GOP is the dominant party in the country right now. Think about it. Yes we Dems have the White House, but the GOP has both houses in Congress, most Governors and control most state governments.
And yet they can't even agree on the next Speaker of the House-the highest ranking Republican in the country, third in line to the WH.
And what's next? No one has close to McCarthy's support and he bailed. Now he's the kingmaker? It's like the GOP looking to Mitt Romney for advice and Jeb asking his brother to campaign for him.
UPDATE: On CNN Trent Franks of Arizona is blaming GOP House dysfunction on Senate Democrats-not House Democrats, Senate Democrats. Talk about passing the buck.
This has been my diagnosis on the whole McCarthy syndrome: the GOP is fundamentally opposed to governing, not just Democratic governing but they eat their own leaders.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/some-vote-of-confidence-dick-cheney.html
How can they blame the Democrats when the GOP House and GOP Senate can't get along? But it's worse than that: the House GOP can't get along with itself.
Now Franks is demanding GOP Senate do away with the filibuster.
"CNN and other news outlets are reporting that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has dropped out of the race for House speaker, facing resistance from hardliners in the Republican caucus."
"Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) told CNN that the nomination conference, scheduled for Thursday, had been postponed. He said McCarthy felt he had the votes for Thursday's closed-door nomination, but was concerned he would not have the 218 votes when the nomination would be brought to a full House later this month."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mccarthy-drops-out
John King puts it well. We have a hostage situation in the GOP House.
"Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said during a press conference on Fox News that McCarthy will continue to stay on as majority leader. He added that neither of the other two candidates -- Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) -- had close to McCarthy's support, so House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has opened the election up for more candidates."
"Kevin McCarthy will be the most important endorsement for whoever ultimately becomes the speaker," Issa said.
The GOP is the dominant party in the country right now. Think about it. Yes we Dems have the White House, but the GOP has both houses in Congress, most Governors and control most state governments.
And yet they can't even agree on the next Speaker of the House-the highest ranking Republican in the country, third in line to the WH.
And what's next? No one has close to McCarthy's support and he bailed. Now he's the kingmaker? It's like the GOP looking to Mitt Romney for advice and Jeb asking his brother to campaign for him.
Interesting post Mike. I read it here first! In your opinion, what's the optimal outcome from McCarthy at this point? What if he doesn't endorse anybody? What if it takes a year to get a new speaker? Lol. What if nobody can be speaker without Democratic votes? A long shot, I know, but that would be a nice outcome I think.
ReplyDeleteI want to see the GOP split over irreconcilable differences.
I thought this cartoon did a good job of examining the current state of the GOP:
http://images.dailykos.com/images/164276/large/TMW2015-09-16color.png?1442169102
I just wrote a piece about the possibility of needing Dem votes. Actually GOPer from PA. Charlie Dent agreed it's a possibility.
DeleteWill GOP need Dem votes to confirm their Speaker? http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/will-next-gop-speaker-need-democratic.html
Jason Chaffetz clearly wants the job and while the consensus if he lacks the votes even McCarthy had at least he speaks English better than McCarthy that's for sure.
Or in another post I just wrote, maybe Boehner will be trapped her for the near future.
Or maybe they make Rush Speaker. All kinds of possibilities but the bottomline is this party is no longer qualified to run a pet shop.
Delete"The GOP is the dominant party in the country right now. Think about it. Yes we Dems have the White House, but the GOP has both houses in Congress, most Governors and control most state governments."
ReplyDeleteAnd they've gerrymandered the fuck out of everything to where we won't have a chance of rectifying this until 2020... that is unless the GOP splits. Honestly, that sounds like the best outcome... perhaps for everyone.
What would it take for that to happen? At some point the neo-liberal branch might decide to cut bait and figure they could get more of their interests supported by forming selective alliances rather than always being beholden to the ever escalating insanity of the right-wing entertainment industrial complex influenced branch.
It seems to me that there's a feedback loop between the media-driven base and their media... the media will definitely look towards detecting the mob's direction and getting out in front of it and urging it on to further depths of insanity. Whereas the mob is in turn influenced by that urging, but not 100% controlled by it. Thus the 180 degree turns people like Trump and Rush have done (over the years) on immigration for example. And it's all based on fantasy and trying to milk angry emotionalism for all it's worth. All this immigration fury comes at a time when net immigration is down, right? Inflation is low, but still there's all this worry about it. I heard Ben Carson interviewed on NPR's Marketplace yesterday... talking about improving gov efficiency... not hiring government workers to replace those that retire, and a balanced budget amendment (while simultaneously becoming much more aggressive around the world militarily)... and how running the government is like running a well functioning physicians office. He didn't impress me.
I think shism is where this is going. Stephen Schmidt admitted as much just a few minutes ago.
ReplyDeleteI mean the rise of Trump has raised the chance of a brokered convention or a third party.
Now the fact that they can't even elect their own Speaker points the same way.
My guess is at some point the party splits in two. It's underway already.