Look, you all know what I think of Kreepy Kevin McCarthy. He’s a sniveling craven coward whose entire political career has been spent in lust and pursuit of power. Great. I can live with that because at least you know who you’re dealing with, and what to expect.
McCarthy has spent his entire 12 year career conniving to hold the Speakers gavel one day. He blew it in 2015. If he blows it today, he’ll probably resign from the House, since his GOP leadership days will be over, and what’s the fun of just being a congressman? So this floor fight is do-or-die for McCarthy’s career.
Yesterday I wrote that today’s GOP House was performative art that took a decade to ripen. I was speaking specifically of the Freedom Caucus, and that’s the caucus McCarthy rode into congress on in 2011. But because McCarthy came in with them, he soon understood their innate weakness. Mainly that they weren’t interested in governance, only chaos. And so he mainstreamed to chase power. And the Freedom Caucus hasn’t forgotten it.
Here’s the setup. From the day they were sworn in, the Freedom Caucus has always been the smallest caucus in the GOP, if you don’t count the People who live south of 157th street, but east of Lexington caucus. Which isn’t saying much. Because of their size, the mainstream GOP was able to ignore their bullshit, and largely work around them.
The same thing is true of the newer Trump MAGA Caucus. If you look purely at the numbers, by far and away the largest caucus in the House GOPis still the non MAGA, non Freedom Caucus mainstream GOP. The GOP could have dealt with this problem anytime in the last 10 years, But because of Traitor Tot’s force of personality and success, the mainstream GOP climbed on board and went for the ride.
Which is something that Kevin McCarthy seems to understand only too well. Because apparently McCarthy is the only one in the GOP who can count to eleven without unzipping his fly. And because his ass is in this sling, and McCarthy’s career is on the line, he’s thinking in survival mode. And the math is really simple if you just look.
Right now McCarthy is stuck on 202 votes, 16 short of what he needs to be elected Speaker. Which means that he has the support of 90% of the House GOP caucus. What he has is a minute clot of 20 Never Kevin protest votes that are locking everything up. Which just happen to be the same 20 assholes from the Freedom Party caucus who have been mucking up the works for a decade now. And because McCarthy’s career is on the line, he will do whatever it takes to bring the Freedom caucus into line. By whatever means necessary.
I have been writing for days now that in the long run, it would be a defection of moderate GOP caucus members who would cross the aisle to cut a deal with the Democrats to nominate a compromise consensus Speaker. And that is still a possibility that various commentators and politicos are talking about.
But today, as McCarthy failures kept piling up, for the first time I heard not just one, but two stone McCarthy supporters talk to MSNBC reporters about the possibility of McCarthy reaching across the aisle to the Democrats if the Freedom caucus remains totally intransigent and unmovable. McCarthy is so desperate to get that gavel that he’ll cut a deal with the other devil in order to get it!
And in an act of pure political cowardice and desperation, McCarthy is doing what the GOP should have done 10 years ago. He’s telling the bully to duck off. He’ll cut a deal with them if he can, but since their name is Never Kevin, those odds aren’t good. And so, he’s spreading ten-gallon hints that if he must, he’ll make them irrelevant by working with the other side.
This is a whole nother dilemma for the Freedom Caucus. They’re used to calling the shots by disruption and threats, even though it seldom works. But now they may have a Speaker candidate telling them that he’ll work around them if he has to. And there’s no doubt that McCarthy’s supporters are so pissed that they can’t even see straight. If he pulls the majority of them with him to cut a deal with the Democrats, they’re irrelevant. And if McCarthy gets the gavel, their committee assignments are going to be toast. Whatever you do, don’t touch that dial.
The Democrats may make a deal w/ a republican, but it won’t be Qevin McCarthy. For the moment, they are united in opposition to his speakership. They might be enticed by an actual moderate republican (who would have to be outside the House) who is willing to work w/ them. McCarthy has no credibility w/ the Democratic caucus, so why would they help the guy who threatened to beat Nancy Pelosi w/ the gavel.
And they will rightfully REMaiN united until McCarthy is willing to sweeten the pot enough…In simple terms, there really is NO other alternative to mcCarthy unless it’s an outside consensus nominee…
Kevin will have to give away the store to make it worth the Dems’ while. And if he does that, he’s finished careerwise. Jeffries will make him bend the knee before the former even THINKS about a deal with the latter.
Jeffries is keeping the Dems together. I am sure Dems like Henry cuellar are dying to sell out for a committee chair if he could turn for mccarthy. Jeffries like pelosi is doing a good job keeping everyone happy.
Before this year is done, EVERYONE will know Jeffries’ name.
Had to post a comment after reading this:
“The GOP could have dealt with this problem anytime in the last 10 years, But because of Traitor Tot’s force of personality and success, the mainstream GOP climbed on board and went for the ride.”
Nope. Sorry, Murf, but the “mainstream” GOP could not have ever dealt with it. The reason? PRIMARY FIGHT. We saw what happened in 2010 when the upstart Tea Party threatened to bolt the GOP if it didn’t give them what they wanted. And in the early days of primary season, many long-time “mainstream” GOP incumbents (who hadn’t faced any serious challenges since their first go around) were suddenly facing challenges from people screaming that the GOP incumbent wasn’t “conservative enough.” The “mainstream” GOP faced these far-right nuts and CAVED. The “mainstream” GOP was scared to death at the prospect of LOSING (and not just to the Democrats but also these upstart far-right nuts) so it EMBRACED THE ENTIRE MOVEMENT. ALL the incumbents started spouting the Tea Party line and suddenly their challengers just largely fell by the wayside or openly embraced the incumbents (and suddenly, all these “not conservative enough” incumbents were “acceptably far-right conservative”).
Then, we got a newer version of the Teabagger movement with Trump and his batch of MAGAts and all those “never Trumpers” found themselves being threatened with primary opponents (especially in states which held primaries for Congressional races months after the “Presidential preference” primaries).
(now I’ll go finish reading the article)