The day is finally here. Lord and little fishes, it took the GOP longer than it took Mother Nature to create the Grand Canyon, but the RNC and the GOP House are finally ready to give King the Steve-ho.Here’s how you know that the GOP is really, really, honest-to-God serious about kicking Mr “Cantaloupe Calves” to the curb.
Getting elected to the US House is no guarantee of a cash cow slush fund that lets you end up with a retirement villa on the Costa Del Sol. Lobbyists and special interests don’t “buy” the entire House of Representatives. Jeez, there are 435 of the greedy little buggers, and it only takes 218 votes to pass a piece of legislation. Besides, 90% of the members vote whichever way their leadership tells them to.
The secret to wealth in the House, both personal and campaign, lies with the committee assignments. If you get posted to the Indian Affairs committee, you might want to get a good pair of shoes for knocking on doors the next time reelection comes up. There just aren’t all that many high profile, large contract issues that come up before that committee. But if you manage to luck your way onto the Defense committee, you’re gonna have Lockheed and Boeing getting into fist fights in your waiting room. And remember, Tom Price made a personal fortune by quietly trading pharmaceutical and surgical stocks of companies with legislation pending before his committee. That’s the kind of power that the House leaders hold over their minions, the power of the special interest purse strings.
Which is why Steve King is now officially dead in the water as far as the GOP is concerned. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced last night that King had been stripped of all of his committee assignments. This comes on top of proclamations from the NRCC and the NRC that they would not support King in a 2020 primary or general election bid. But it’s the stripping of assignments that’s the potential kiss of death, for two reasons.
First of all, Steve King is about to become one seriously bored, and bummed out mofo. Steve King is going to have to pootle on out to Washington every Monday, and just sit there with nothing better to do than twiddle his thumbs, debate, and vote on bills before the House. No more committee meetings or hearings to dash off to, no more face time on the tube. And nobody who wants to keep their own assignments is going to spring to his defense.
But more importantly, no committees means no corporate, special interest, or lobbyist kaboodle. Last year, when the RNCC announced late in the cycle that it was withdrawing support from King, he could have cared less. He already had all of the special interest and lobbyist ducks he needed in neat rows.But now, with no assignments on high profile committees, special interests will dump him like yesterdays diaper. Besides, what respectable company with a positive public profile would want to be associated in any way with a loutish bigot like King if it wasn’t absolutely necessary?
Steve King already has an announced challenger for the GOP primary in 2020, and if the Democrats are smart, they’re looking for the cleanest scrubbed fresh face they can find for the general election. And if the RNC and the RNCC is pissed enough at King to pull his committee assignments, and with it his major source of election campaign swag, one would imagine that they will invest heavily in his most acceptable challenger in the primary,and take their chances in the general election. But it appears that the GOP finally wants Steve King gone, and the only two words that I can think of are adios motherfucker.
