McCarthy "is open" to bring Speaker again.

I'll just bet he is. He says so, anyway.

Well, why not? 200 odd GOP House members voted to keep him on. He seems to have a much larger base than either Jordan or Scalise. Indeed, the only person with a larger base of support is Jeffries!

 

How much of his support is disdain for the others? We're about to find out.

McCarthy is a jilted lover, still open to the apology and return. Move on, bro.

Of course, he had a chance to be a statesman and to make history by recognizing a fragile and unruly majority and cutting a power-sharing deal with the only person with the mojo to deliver votes: Jeffries. Either way, he would have been done at the end of this term. But instead of going out on his shield, he'll crawl out on his knees.

Finally, he sounds like someone who got off the bus at the wrong stop and has no idea where he is or why.

Nixon got the boot in '60 (national) and '62 (California). He claimed he was done with politics, that the press wouldn't have ol' Dick Nixon to kick around anymore. Six years later he was elected president. McCarthy is no Nixon.

He'll probably just wait around until January '25 and then catch a lift with Kyrsten Sinema on her way to K Street.

 

I'm thinking that there's a good chance that no Republican can be Speaker of the House based on only Republican votes. In January it took McCarthy 15 rounds of votes to get the gavel. The Republicans seem even more unruly today than last January. We may be seeing a history making agreement with the Democrats to support a Republican Speaker. Do you think that Democrats should help? How many committee chairs might it cost the Republicans? Or, should the Democrats bargain for something else? Of course the Republicans have to ask first.

Democrats helping might lose an opportunity to make the Republicans look really bad to the electorate. But, it might be better for the country to get the congress back to work? What do others think? I'm torn myself. I have lots of questions but little clue on what the best answers might be, uncharted territory.

 

The guy that crawls lives to fight another day. Anyway I agree with both of you that probably no one can become Speaker without Democrat buy-in. But with that buy in, McCarthy isn't the only possibility.

 

It would unprecedented, I believe.

I'd rather see that than a Speaker Jeffries. This is their mess. Perhaps Democrats--if cut the right deal--should form a coalition with the Less-Than-Crazy Caucus.

But who leads that? Who could a small klatch of Republicans offer up as a Speaker they would support AND the Democrats would accept and all get behind?

Does Jeffries risk the solidarity of the Democrats by doing such a thing? If so, is it worth it?

I do know this: if this is politics interfering with the nation's business, fine. I'll accept that. But it's not the Democrats' responsibility to clean it up.

Their clown. Their circus.

 

Their clowns, their circus, our country.

 

I'd rather see someone else than McCarthy. I think that his word is pretty useless. He'll say whatever gets him by the moment that he's in. Jim Jordan would probably be even a worse Speaker. He'll blindly do whatever The Donald tells him to do. Whatever the case, I believe the Republicans will have to go through lots of pain before they will be ready to make a deal with Democrats.

 

Or the 2024 election happens and the Dems get the majority.

 

Well, Democrats were not asked in on the Speaker decision. I doubt seriously they will be brought in on the next one, either. Perhaps, after some serious period of pain, but I suspect there will be someone the Republicans can elect Speaker...eventually.

And even if they do ask, I'm not so sure the Democrats will accept the task. It could do internal damage to the rather robust unity they now enjoy.

 

That and I'm not sure that the Republicans and Democrats could even come to an agreement. Republicans would have to be in very great pain, I think, before they would be willing to give up whatever would be required to make a deal that the Democrats would be interested in.

 

Meanwhile...no Speaker.

 

Maybe the American people need to make better decisions. Maybe they need to make clearer distinctions. Maybe they need to take their politics and the idea of self-government seriously.

Maybe, just maybe, this is OUR fault.

 

Well...strange to say I think the majority of House membership is pretty pragmatic. We will see after today.

 

Well it took McCarthy 15 rounds of votes and 4 or 5 days. So give them a week or two.

Which I guess is technically after today.

 

Scalise won the majority of the Republicans. Today he bowed out of the running because he didn't have the votes to win on the floor. It is, of course, unknown whether or not he tried to make a deal with the Democrats. We are one tiny step closer to that though. It is looking to me like a deal with the Democrats is becoming more likely as each day goes by without any Speaker.

(I didn't like Scalise anyway. He spoke at a white nationalist meeting. He called himself David Duke without the baggage.)

 

Jordan is worse.

 

In my eye, there are 6 possibilities. My money is on only (sorta) one of these:

1. McCarthy Returns. No. Just no.
2. One of the other leading candidates gets 217 Republicans behind him/her. Again, no.
3. The non-nihilists in the GOP cut a deal to get Democrats support. It would have to be an amazing deal, because such a move will not come at no cost, especially to the unified nature of the caucus.
4. The non-nihilists in the GOP get behind Jeffries as Speaker, along with some deal he would need to actually be Speaker without the majority. But no, he shouldn't want that deal. It would be a horrible job and it will not make Democrats happy who now support him unanimously.
5. A no-name is put forth that all Republicans can accept for now. Someone like McHenry or one of the Republicans retiring from the House. This can happen once the nihilists realize they are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. They may not come to that realization.
6. Nothing changes and we hobble down the road to the 2024 elections with a crippled House.

Perhaps their are other plausible pathways from where we are.

My money is on #5. But I've got some leftover coin and I put it on #6.

 

Agreed that Jim Jordan would be even a worse choice than Scalise.

An excellent list of possibilities. My guess would be #5 or #3. If they let the Speaker Pro Tem do some of the legislation tasks then I'd pick #6. Although I wouldn't be that shocked if it was one of the other 3. Which just goes to show you how clueless I feel.

 

#5.

 

In terms of....?

I believe there is a line marked "Disaster" out there and both of them are waaaaay past it. Of course, so was McCarthy, as we have seen.

I believe any distinctions to be made do not amount to real differences in results. Was Hitler worse than Mussolini? Sure. But they both had to go.