Current Affairs General US politics (ie, not POTUS related)
- Thread starter Dylan
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If the GOP conference would just use ranked choice voting, this would have been easier......for them to still not have a speaker candidate who will get 217.
He had had quite a funny Twitter feed throughout this, a bit nihilistic but tbh if you are in that caucus I suppose you either laugh about it or cry uncontrollably.
Martin Alvito
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The early round vote totals that leaked don't make 217 look likely. I would have expected Emmer to have the most support - he had to pull a majority of the conference to get the whip posting - but those are anemic vote totals in context.
Still can't see this ending other way than someone with the votes walking into Jeffries' office and asking what it will cost.
Still can't see this ending other way than someone with the votes walking into Jeffries' office and asking what it will cost.
3rd time lucky?
Even if he gets all of Johnson votes the 6 is still enough to sink him.
Martin Alvito
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Emmer started out with around 90, which says something about how large the "anyone but leadership" faction is. I would imagine the support that flocked to Johnson's banner in the last round from the insurgents went there solely because he is not Emmer. (Johnson is the vice-chair of the conference, which is an entry-level leadership spot.)
You can probably think of potentials better than me - are there any non-representatives that could get parachuted in and win with bipartisan appeal? We know from all the insane Trump chatter than the Speaker doesn't have to be a member of the House, so is there anyone of any standing that could get votes from the moderate blocs of both parties to cut the MAGA-tinged mentalists out of the picture? Someone who could make it clear it's a temporary measure to last the year until the new Congress takes their seats and votes in another Speaker? I'm thinking some popular moderate Republican ex-Senator, Governor etc.
Martin Alvito
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Boehner would have the best shot. The Democrats made that clear enough last week on the floor. The Democrats knew he was no friend, but they liked and respected him because they also knew his word was good.
There aren't a lot of 'moderate', popular former governors and senators on the Republican bench. The party has been systematically purging non-ideologues for over a decade. (The same is true of the Democrats, but over a shorter time period.) Trump's election accelerated the process of rendering the moderates pariahs and making compromise a dirty word.
End of the day, what you're seeing reflects deep divisions in the conference over Israel, Ukraine and appropriations legislation. The hard right wants to cut Ukraine adrift as part and parcel of deep spending cuts. They want the best bargaining position possible against the Senste and the president, which requires divorcing all the issues and individual spending bills.
Leadership, which would just like to pass something and put the mess to bed, thank you very much, wants a single omnibus piece of bipartisan legislation they can get through the Senate and onto Biden's desk. This would continue to fund Ukraine and would not result in spending cuts, which the MAGA lot does not want.
In reality, the fight is over those policy preferences. The hard right wants someone like Jordan to go to the mattresses, and they know Scalise and Emmer won't do that.
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