I don’t even know who to root for.
First there’s the battle for control of the United States House of Representatives.
Sure, the Republicans won that battle in the November election, but which Republicans?
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy hopes it’s his. He appears to have craved the Speakership since he was an infant in swaddling clothes.
But his craving might be denied. A band of right-wing rebels even more conservative than he is have staked out their stance, which is “NO WAY.”
Like Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz. On Trump ally Steve Bannon’s fittingly named War Room podcast, Gaetz summed it up this way: “Kevin McCarthy has been holding up a shield to protect some of the dangerous elements of society that have harmed conservatives. And I don't think that he has passed the test of leadership.”
Firebrand Lauren Boebert isn’t in McCarthy’s camp either, at least not yet. She says of the promises he has made to try to mollify this far-right faction, “There’s no accountability attached to the promises.”
Arizona hard-liner Andy Biggs calls McCarthy “a creature of the establishment status quo” and charges him and his “establishment” Republicans with a failure “to fight the radical Leftists” and “to put the brakes on the Left.”
So like a prostitute raising the hem of her dress, McCarthy has been offering meat to the far-right. Reportedly he promised anti-Semitic QAnon enthusiast Marjorie Taylor Greene not only that she would be able to reclaim positions on House committees which she lost in the current session of Congress, but that they would be “powerful” positions. Greene is now in McCarthy’s camp.
And just yesterday, to show his cred as an unbending right-winger himself, McCarthy tweeted that “when” he’s Speaker, bills from any senator who votes for the $1.7-billion bi-partisan spending package soon to be decided in Congress— including Republican senators— “will be dead on arrival in the House.” Translation: to win more support for the Speakership, the best interests of the country— even those perceived by fellow Republicans— be damned.
The reaction from North Dakota Republican Senator Kevin Cramer, no shrinking violet among conservatives who said earlier this year, “I would love to have four more years with Donald Trump,” was caustic: “Statements like that and statements coming from House Republicans is the very reason that some Senate Republicans feel they probably should spare them from the burden of having to govern.”
Likewise from Utah Senator Mitt Romney: “We’re enduring the silly season of a campaign. For most of us, that’s over after you get elected. But he’s running for speaker of the House, so the silliness is still evident.”
Cat fight.
And for McCarthy, it might be all for naught. Arizona’s Biggs, who opposed the party leader in an internal party caucus in late November, plans to oppose him again by running for Speaker himself.
His odds of victory are slim to none— in the November caucus, he lost to McCarthy 188 to 31. But here’s the conundrum for McCarthy: to be elected Speaker, he needs 218 votes. For the sake of party unity, many of the 31 who opposed him last month will likely come around next month. But Congressman Gaetz said on a recent radio talk show, "I'm not voting for Kevin McCarthy. I'm not voting for him tomorrow. I'm not voting for him on the floor.” If a mere handful of other dissidents stays as stubborn as Gaetz, Kevin McCarthy can’t claim his coveted post.
Another cat fight.
Does a take-no-prisoners right-winger from the unswervingly conservative House Freedom Caucus carve out a coalition? Does a comparative moderate bring the party together? Some have speculated that if McCarthy can’t assemble the votes he needs, it’ll give rise to a candidate who can actually attract votes from the other side of the aisle to make it over that 218-vote hump. Fat chance, but not unimaginable.
Then there’s the battle that broke out just yesterday: Marjorie Taylor Greene versus Lauren Boebert. Remember, these two have been allies on the fringe since they began their freshman terms two years ago. Both have become some of the biggest fundraisers for right-wing movements. They’re the pair who infamously heckled President Biden during his State of the Union address last March.
But it looks like they’re headed for divorce.
On a radio broadcast, Boebert mocked Greene’s baffling belief in “space lasers,” which she first blamed in a Facebook post for setting wildfires in California, then more recently turned them into “Jewish space lasers.”
Greene fired back, writing that Boebert “gladly takes our $$$ but when she’s been asked, Lauren refuses to endorse President Trump, she refuses to support Kevin McCarthy, and she childishly threw me under the bus for a cheap sound bite."
To which the gun-toting Boebert shot back: "I’ve been asked to explain MTG’s belief in Jewish space lasers, why she showed up to a white supremacist’s conference and now why she’s blindly following Kevin McCarthy, and I’m not going to go there.”
Cat fight of cat fights.
It all reminds me of the Republican presidential candidate almost 60 years ago, Arizona’s Barry Goldwater. The senator who had written the best-selling “Conscience of a Conservative” famously said of his unyielding views, “I’d rather be right than president.” He got his way. Running against Lyndon Johnson, he carried six states to Johnson’s 44.
Who will get their way in today’s Republican party? Whether we’re talking about Speaker of the House next month, or President of the United States in two years time, it’s up for grabs. I don’t know who to root for, since in this party that already has gone over the edge, I can’t root for anyone at all. But in the converse of “Let the best man win,” it might end up being the worst.
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 36-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
Too bad they don't have the tranquility of the Bhuddist Monks in Vietnam....self immolation might help restore some sanity to these folks. Thanks Greg....well-reasoned.