I like to say that Trey Gowdy is the real campaign manager for Jeb-or Rubio-as McCarthy has now helpfully confirmed for us.
However, more and more it's looking like McCarthy may be the MVP for the Dems. He has given the Dems a real boon to fight back against the Emailgate smear of Hillary. After all it gives them cause to now demand the end of the Benghazi Committee-if the Committee is shut down then obviously Trey Gowdy won't be able to rifle through her emails anymore.
At the very least it gives her and her supporters a real opening to fight back. I did see that some Beltway hacks still want to argue that this changes nothing on Emailgate but this forgets for starters that EG is the creature of Benghazi. If Benghazi is shutdown then they can't investigate EG.
And even if Benghazi continues but is increasingly discredited, this increasingly discredits each new breathless revelation Gowdy leaks to the press.
Indeed, it's looking like McCarthy may be a real boon for Democrats beyond this one huge gaffe of his.
A day before his gaffe, Dana Milbank documented the presumed next Speaker's penchant for mangled syntax and struggle with the English language that brings to mind George W. Bush or even Dan Quayle.
It's sort of ironic that his new job is Speaker but he doesn't speak very well-even when he's reading a statement.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/for-rep-mccarthy-the-likely-new-house-speaker-words-still-fail-him/2015/09/28/67082056-661d-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html
Don't get me wrong while when he talks about foreign policy he seems to develop a lead tongue, he was perfecctlyl intelligible on what he said about Benghazi.
But you have to wonder if this guy may actually be in over his head as Speaker. This is not expected to lose him his job.
The sad truth is that this job is his by default as no one else wants it.
In a larger sense this is the product of the GOP's hostility to governing as such. It opposes leadership-even leaders in its own party.
In the GOP today-you see this in the primary too with how poorly the establishment candidates are doing-there is contempt for electing or elevating anyone who is an actual politician.
The base loves Trtump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina precisely because they have no experience on office.
And McCarthy's resume is similarly very light.
Has passed two bill in his career. Only eight years in office. The GOP as the party allergic to governing loves to have people run government with no experience running the government. This would make him the most inexperienced Speaker since 1891.
But you wonder how far you can take this anti politician bias. Or more to the point how far can you go and this be in your own interest?
McCarthy comes in a kind of blank slate, a totally untested quantity. The first reviews suggest this could be just the start of the trouble.
So as a Democrat I'm as big a fan of him as Speaker as Trump as the GOP frontrunner. I'm guessing Democrats keep an eye on him-this I suspect may be just the first big gaffe or mistake.
Indeed, he has a history already like when he messed up a roll call vote for Boehner.
I tend to think that Sean Trende is right but am rather surprised how fast he's proven right when he said the GOP may regret losing Boehner.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/09/29/why_the_gop_may_regret_losing_boehner.html
Trende actually argued that with Boehner leaving the House may even be in play for the Democrats in 2016. I figured that was just hyperbole-and I still am not going to be that optimistic.
But it's already clear this guy is not even one tenth the speaker Boehner was-which is not necessarily even saying much in favor of Boehner, just that he was a real Speaker with the background for the job.
The real worry for GOPers is this may just be the start of his gaffes. McCarthy may well not be up to the job. But there is no one to replace him as no one else would want the job.
Here is conservative talk show host firebrand Mark Levine calling McCarthy 'Eric Cantor with 10 less IQ points.'
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/254978-mark-levin-mccarthy-is-eric-cantor-with-10-less-iq-points
I don't know. It may be a lot more than 10.
P.S. At the end of the day I read McCarthy as the logical conclusion or next step at least-it always gets worse when you are talking about the GOPl so you never say they've hit bottom-in the evolution of the modern GOP-which I date as the post New Deal GOP.
Ever since the ND the GOP has been about nothing but opposition to the New Deal. When they have won elections it's always been by attacking Democrats rather than offering their own meaningful vision for the country.
I mean go back to Nixon. He always felt that he had a built in disadvantage in 1960 as he had a record was Vice President in the Eisehnhower Administration to defend.
He had rolled into Washington in 1946 in a Republican wave that accused the Democrats of being soft on Communism if not Communists themselves.
Remember that before that GOP wave the Dems had controlled the entire government for 14 years straight starting with FDR in 1932.
This has been the proclivity of the modern Republican party-they oppose the Democrats' ideas but don't really have their own. That's why governing never interests them too much.
Mao talked about permanent revolution. The GOP is in permanent opposition.
But to win elections, to build a majority coalition takes actual governing.
Ergo the GOP will never have a majority coalition,
However, more and more it's looking like McCarthy may be the MVP for the Dems. He has given the Dems a real boon to fight back against the Emailgate smear of Hillary. After all it gives them cause to now demand the end of the Benghazi Committee-if the Committee is shut down then obviously Trey Gowdy won't be able to rifle through her emails anymore.
At the very least it gives her and her supporters a real opening to fight back. I did see that some Beltway hacks still want to argue that this changes nothing on Emailgate but this forgets for starters that EG is the creature of Benghazi. If Benghazi is shutdown then they can't investigate EG.
And even if Benghazi continues but is increasingly discredited, this increasingly discredits each new breathless revelation Gowdy leaks to the press.
Indeed, it's looking like McCarthy may be a real boon for Democrats beyond this one huge gaffe of his.
A day before his gaffe, Dana Milbank documented the presumed next Speaker's penchant for mangled syntax and struggle with the English language that brings to mind George W. Bush or even Dan Quayle.
It's sort of ironic that his new job is Speaker but he doesn't speak very well-even when he's reading a statement.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/for-rep-mccarthy-the-likely-new-house-speaker-words-still-fail-him/2015/09/28/67082056-661d-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html
Don't get me wrong while when he talks about foreign policy he seems to develop a lead tongue, he was perfecctlyl intelligible on what he said about Benghazi.
But you have to wonder if this guy may actually be in over his head as Speaker. This is not expected to lose him his job.
The sad truth is that this job is his by default as no one else wants it.
In a larger sense this is the product of the GOP's hostility to governing as such. It opposes leadership-even leaders in its own party.
In the GOP today-you see this in the primary too with how poorly the establishment candidates are doing-there is contempt for electing or elevating anyone who is an actual politician.
The base loves Trtump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina precisely because they have no experience on office.
And McCarthy's resume is similarly very light.
Has passed two bill in his career. Only eight years in office. The GOP as the party allergic to governing loves to have people run government with no experience running the government. This would make him the most inexperienced Speaker since 1891.
But you wonder how far you can take this anti politician bias. Or more to the point how far can you go and this be in your own interest?
McCarthy comes in a kind of blank slate, a totally untested quantity. The first reviews suggest this could be just the start of the trouble.
So as a Democrat I'm as big a fan of him as Speaker as Trump as the GOP frontrunner. I'm guessing Democrats keep an eye on him-this I suspect may be just the first big gaffe or mistake.
Indeed, he has a history already like when he messed up a roll call vote for Boehner.
I tend to think that Sean Trende is right but am rather surprised how fast he's proven right when he said the GOP may regret losing Boehner.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/09/29/why_the_gop_may_regret_losing_boehner.html
Trende actually argued that with Boehner leaving the House may even be in play for the Democrats in 2016. I figured that was just hyperbole-and I still am not going to be that optimistic.
But it's already clear this guy is not even one tenth the speaker Boehner was-which is not necessarily even saying much in favor of Boehner, just that he was a real Speaker with the background for the job.
The real worry for GOPers is this may just be the start of his gaffes. McCarthy may well not be up to the job. But there is no one to replace him as no one else would want the job.
Here is conservative talk show host firebrand Mark Levine calling McCarthy 'Eric Cantor with 10 less IQ points.'
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/254978-mark-levin-mccarthy-is-eric-cantor-with-10-less-iq-points
I don't know. It may be a lot more than 10.
P.S. At the end of the day I read McCarthy as the logical conclusion or next step at least-it always gets worse when you are talking about the GOPl so you never say they've hit bottom-in the evolution of the modern GOP-which I date as the post New Deal GOP.
Ever since the ND the GOP has been about nothing but opposition to the New Deal. When they have won elections it's always been by attacking Democrats rather than offering their own meaningful vision for the country.
I mean go back to Nixon. He always felt that he had a built in disadvantage in 1960 as he had a record was Vice President in the Eisehnhower Administration to defend.
He had rolled into Washington in 1946 in a Republican wave that accused the Democrats of being soft on Communism if not Communists themselves.
Remember that before that GOP wave the Dems had controlled the entire government for 14 years straight starting with FDR in 1932.
This has been the proclivity of the modern Republican party-they oppose the Democrats' ideas but don't really have their own. That's why governing never interests them too much.
Mao talked about permanent revolution. The GOP is in permanent opposition.
But to win elections, to build a majority coalition takes actual governing.
Ergo the GOP will never have a majority coalition,
No comments:
Post a Comment