The GOP continues its meltdown and it’s a matter of opinion whether you want to compare it to an ice house which has found itself with the roof off and the sun beating down on it, or a nuclear power plant with the rods out of adjustment. Whether it slowly melts or goes kaboom, one thing is certain: a new GOP is being formed day by day. The two sides that are vying for dominance are the Trumpers v. Old School GOPers. In the House of Representatives the schism is seen most clearly in how Kevin McCarthy represents the one faction and Liz Cheney the other.
This is an interesting battle to watch. It’s speculated that Liz Cheney is looking to be Speaker of the House when the inevitable happens and the GOP retakes the chamber. Kevin McCarthy lives for nothing else. He has banked his entire career on MAGA and Trump loyalty getting him there. Cheney is banking hers on seeking the truth of what happened January 6 and standing for higher principles, such as the continuation of the democratic republic which Donald Trump seeks to undermine and the rule of law.
Where all this has led is that if you are a political consultant, now is the time to fish or cut bait. You need to get with one camp or the other, there is no being in both. New York Times:
Jeff Miller, the lobbyist and a confidant of Mr. McCarthy’s dating to their youthful days in California politics, has conveyed this us-or-her message to Republican strategists in recent weeks, prompting one fund-raising firm to disassociate itself from Ms. Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming. […]
Mr. Miller’s warnings illustrate the disintegration of the relationship between the two lawmakers, who began this year serving together in the House Republican leadership. They also underline Mr. McCarthy’s willingness to wield his leadership position to undercut Ms. Cheney’s re-election and head off an impediment to his claiming the speakership, should Republicans win a House majority next year. Were Ms. Cheney to return to Congress, she would loom as a potential instigator of any effort to block Mr. McCarthy from leading their party in the House.
If there’s one thing lap dog McCarthy and his Marmalade Master agree upon, it’s get rid of Liz Cheney. Trump does not like the factual challenges that she’s presenting in the House along with the rest of the January 6 Select Committee and McCarthy probably has nightmares about her return to the House of Representatives to pose a problem to his plans to become Speaker.
And well he should worry. Cheney had an impressive earnings quarter, raising $1.9 Million in campaign funds. However, bear in mind that a lot of those funds are not from Republicans in Wyoming and some of the funds are from Democrats. That said, the Cheney name is big in Wyoming and she very likely will prevail and get reelected for another term. At least, that is what she’s counting on, that the family dynasty is solid enough to carry the day and that the MAGAs don’t control Wyoming.
I hope she’s right. I would rather have her in the House denouncing Trump and McCarthy than another Stepford Republican like Elise Stefanik, which is all that the people who are trying to primary Cheney amount to.
A spokesman for Ms. Cheney, Jeremy Adler, blistered Mr. McCarthy for working against her candidacy while supporting some of the most extreme members of the House Republican conference.
“It’s sad but not surprising that Kevin McCarthy is continuing down the morally bankrupt path of embracing House Republicans who are white supremacists and conspiracy theorists, but attacking Liz Cheney for telling the truth and standing for the Constitution,” Mr. Adler said. […]
She [Cheney] has retained support from an array of leading Republicans, including Mr. Bush; Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader; and the former House Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan.
She has, however, emerged as perhaps Mr. Trump’s top priority to defeat. After meeting with a series of would-be challengers, Mr. Trump in September endorsed Harriet Hageman, a Cheyenne attorney who had taken part in a failed, last-ditch effort to strip him of the 2016 Republican presidential nomination two months after he had clinched it.
Ms. Hageman, who was once a Cheney family friend and served as an adviser to Ms. Cheney’s short-lived 2014 Senate campaign, raised just over $300,000 for the quarter, but she only filed her candidacy on Sept. 9.
Mr. Trump has endorsed a handful of other Republicans challenging the lawmakers who voted to impeach him and was exultant last month when Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, who cast one of the 10 Republican votes to impeach, said he would retire from Congress rather than run against a former Trump White House official.
“1 Down, 9 To Go!” the former president said in a statement at the time.
Interesting how leaders from small states are so incremental at this time in history. Joe Manchin is from a tiny state and Liz Cheney is from a geographically large state, but one with the least population. Ergo, a tiny number of Americans will be determining her fate in politics in 2022 and perhaps determining the direction of the republic as well, by doing so.
Respectfully, neither opening analogy works for me, Ursula. The correct one in my mind is Game Of Thrones. Nor do I believe Cheney’s ambitions are to be Speaker, at least at this time. There’s not enough of her breed of Republican lawmaker left in the House to make that even possible, for one. For another, she HAS to know that such an elevation in her position would do nothing to cure the party’s larger problems, which are systemic and growing.
So, with this in mind, I maintain my position that her actual plan is to give the GOP a much-needed, long overdue overhaul that purges the elements of Trumpism out. Won’t happen overnight but unlike many of her senior leaders, she’s got the time to make it happen.
“Fish or cut bait” means you can’t just sit there and enjoy the ride, you have to work.
The consultants are being told they can’t sit on the fence any longer; they’ll have to choose which side to be on.
One thing struck me in this article–“Cheney is banking hers on seeking the truth of what happened January 6 and standing for higher principles”. What went through my mind as I read that was has she been paying ANY ATTENTION to her party lately…or even for the past several years? Truth and higher principles from the republican party? Are you f*cking kidding me?!?
OF COURSE she’s paying attention, far better than her GQP peers. It’s why she’s espousing things that the latter would consider blasphemy. She knows there’s no future with them and that rebrand is going to require semi-credible lip service to such principles.
I wonder if she would stand behind frumpy now like she did voting 93% of the time with the nazi?