Ain’t He Strange

If I could stick a pen in my heart, and spill it all over the stage. Would it satisfy you?Would it slide on by you? Would you think the boy is strange? Ain’t he strange? – “Only Rock and Roll” by the Rolling Stones

Kevin’s Dream

Kevin McCarthy, Republican Congressman from California, has worn his dream on his sleeve for a decade. He wants to be Speaker of the House of Representatives, the third most powerful office in the United States of America, second in line for the Presidency.  McCarthy wanted it in 2015, when the conservative Republican Freedom Caucus brought down Speaker John Boehner.  He had the connection with the Caucus, a deal with then-Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan.  Kevin looked like the next Speaker.

Truth

But then he opened his mouth, and the truth poured out.  In a Fox News interview he told Sean Hannity:

What you’re going to see is a conservative speaker, that takes a conservative Congress, that puts a strategy to fight and win. And let me give you one example. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?

But we put together a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known that any of that had happened had we not fought to make that happen.

It was the truth, even if it was awkwardly worded – but it bared the raw political use of the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi to further Republican goals.  It marked the end of McCarthy’s Speaker candidacy in 2015. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin served as Speaker until the Democrats re-took the majority in 2018.  

Kevin learned the danger of the truth.  He stepped back and became the Minority Leader of the Republicans through the last four years. He tried to make friends with everyone, especially the twice-impeached disgraced ex-President, Donald Trump.  But for just one more moment, McCarthy told the truth again. In the days after the January 6^th Insurrection, McCarthy stepped on the floor of the House and put the blame exactly where it belonged – on Trump. 

“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” McCarthy said on the House floor. “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump.”

But in the next few weeks he discovered that, just like in 2015, the truth brought him nothing but trouble.  

Absolution

So he travelled to Mar-a-Lago, to the man who he said bore “full responsibility”, and begged for absolution.  He realized that while the truth was still “true”, the Republicans in Congress weren’t interested in the truth.  They wanted power, regardless of truth or falsehood; the power to stop what they saw as a left-wing, socialist agenda by the majority Democrats.  They wanted power without regard for governing – not the power to “get things done”, but the power to “stop everything”.  

Trump granted McCarthy his “absolution”, and Kevin felt that was enough to put him “on the side” of the Freedom Caucus, and the 154 election denying Republicans in the 2023-24 House of Representatives.  (There are 222 Republicans and 212 Democrats in the House, with one seat vacant).  

Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering is the process where state legislatures draw Congressional (and other) political districts to elect candidates from a particular political party.  As biased, slanted, and wrong as that is, the United States Supreme Court has refused to rule against it.  In many states (like Ohio) even when the voters were against it, passing a  state constitutional amendment, and the state’s highest court agreed, the legislature still continued to draw extreme districts.

A good example of this is Ohio’s Fourth District, which wanders from just outside Dayton to the suburbs of Columbus, Toledo, and even Cleveland.  It unites farmland and suburban development, while absolutely avoiding any large urban centers.  It is the tenth most Republican district in the nation, in a state that has 53% to 47% partisans split.  

Extremes

In districts like Ohio’s Fourth, the general election is no contest – the Republican will win.  The only competition is in the Republican primary.  And since the primary is dominated by the more extreme, dedicated, partisan voters, the Republican “winner” is going to be an extremist, rather than a moderate.  And the winner is – Jim Jordan.

This same sequence happens all over the nation.  It means that legislatures, both the Congress and in the states, are packed with extremists and fewer moderates.  Seventy percent of the Republican caucus in the House are election-denying extremists.  There is little room for more moderate Republicans, or for leaders that the deniers don’t trust.

McCarthy has been a glad-handing politician, the guy who talks to everyone in the Congressional Gym, offers help whenever it’s needed, and tries to make everyone happy.  But the most fervent members of the Freedom Caucus, the extreme of the extremists, don’t believe that McCarthy represents them.  They fear that “the truth” will ultimately slip out, and McCarthy will want to govern as Speaker, rather than just obstruct.  And so even though McCarthy has said all of the right things, in the end, they don’t trust him.  Even when he “stuck a pen in his heart and spilled it out on the stage” by giving any single Republican the right to at any time challenge his Speakership, it still wasn’t enough.

He Ain’t Got the Votes

It requires a majority of 218 to elect the Speaker of the House.  For the past century, the battles for the Speakership went on inside the party caucuses.  Once the caucus voted, then all of the members of that party would unite to vote on the House floor to gain the majority.  Tim Ryan challenged Nancy Pelosi for the Speakership, but when he failed (badly) in the caucus, all the Democrats, including him, voted for Pelosi in the House Chamber.  It is the definition of what “majority control” of the House (or Senate) means.  The “party-line” votes are the leadership votes.  

There are 222 Republicans.  If just five decided to not vote for the caucus choice, then the Party fails to get control.  And right now, there are at least twenty Republicans unwilling to vote for McCarthy.  After three votes for Speaker on Tuesday, they seem to be coalescing around Jim Jordan as their choice for Speaker.  That’s interesting:  Jordan himself nominated McCarthy for Speaker, and continues to vote for him.

So what’s next?  Jordan doesn’t have the votes.  Neither does McCarthy.  Sooner or later, a third candidate will come from the Republican Caucus, perhaps the Republican Whip Louisiana’s Steve Scalise. Or maybe an unknown like the Republican Deputy Whip, Patrick McHenry from North Carolina will emerge.  Sometimes the unknown seems better.  For the Republican Party, dominated by members who want chaos and stalemate rather than government, it’s fitting that they begin this way.

The truth is going to get clear for Kevin McCarthy.  After a decade of campaigning, it will win out again.  Republicans don’t want him. 

 Ain’t it strange?