If one were to place bets on who the next Speaker of the House of Representatives will be the odds must be with Congressman Kevin McCarthy. While it is true the California conservative has fawned over Donald Trump and weakened his own hand with such embarrassing displays and was at the heart of the GOP-wide campaign to whitewash the details of the insurrection on January 6 and therefore should never hold the prized gavel, we should think again. Perhaps McCarthy is getting what he deserves.
With a very slim margin of seats, McCarthy is seeking the third most powerful office in our national government. He needs 218 votes on January 3rd, and there are several ways to get there, including having a few Democrats not on the floor or merely voting “present”. But to attain the speakership, and more importantly retaining it, requires a battle with the most absurd right-wingers the Republican Party surely now regrets fostering. There are, as of this posting, five staunch and verbal conservatives who have said they cannot and will not support McCarthy for the job of speaker. I suspect they can be and will be cheaply bought off with a committee assignment or a tote bag filled with boxed wine and coupons for Chick-fil-A. Getting these rabble-rousers in line will be achieved. At some point before the January vote, it will happen.
But until then the circus performance from the likes of Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs is underway. He has ‘graciously’ offered himself up for the title but to be a leader there need to be followers. Other than the ‘titan of boorish behavior’ Congressman Matt Gaetz and a few others in the always discontented column the rank and file has mostly stayed quiet and away from the carnival tent. The far-right is demanding that the House reinstate what is known as the “motion to vacate” which would allow any member of the House to force a vote to oust the sitting speaker. It should not surprise anyone that what the right-wingers want is simply what they are never going to achieve because no leader with a desire to prevail in the long run would ever consent to his own destruction.
Biggs has stated that if McCarthy does not step aside or surrender to his demands “unnecessary chaos” will occur at the start of the new year when Congress reconvenes. If McCarthy were smart, he would call up author and historian Robert Caro and have a long conversation about how Lyndon Johnson snapped members like Biggs in two and then used them like pool sticks in the game of politics.
It goes without saying McCarty has stated the motion to vacate is off the table and out the door. He has the bulk of his caucus behind him on this issue, as a majority of the House GOP voted against the idea during a closed-door meeting last month. No logical person or organization allows steps for its own destruction. Even the Southern Confederacy during the Civil War did not provide, ironically enough, for the secession by individual states.
It has been cheap theater to see all the hurdles McCarthy is jumping over and those people he otherwise might have at arm’s length (Congressman Jim Jordan) now at his side. He will have a constant thorn pricking him from the most rigid ones in his party, even after allowing him to be speaker. While McCarthy is not an honorable man, given his lack of regard for ferreting out the root causes of Donald Trump and his ilk that created the insurrection, we should still desire him to be speaker. First, it will derail the most rabid on the right in the House from securing their sense of victory. Secondly, we should want McCarthy to be speaker because at times the worst thing one can achieve is what has so long been fought for, and once in hand, backfires.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 