The GOP Disasterbacle Day 19: 9 House Republicans Vie for Speaker

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | October 23, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | October 23, 2023 |

Last Halloween, SNL ran a “horror movie trailer” centered on Joe Biden’s decision to run for reelection. In the skit, the Democrats lost their minds, crippled by indecision, both about whether Biden should run and who could even replace him if he didn’t. Kamala? Mayor Pete? Beto? Warren? Bernie? HILLARY?! Imagine if the Democratic party ran the House of Representatives, and AOC had Biden ousted as Speaker. Would the Democrats fall into disarray? Or could we back a single candidate for Speaker of the House?

I think that the party would eventually come to a consensus on someone (probably Kamala) whom the entire party could get behind, reluctant or not, because our most left-leaning members still put the party over themselves. But this is what’s happening in the House: They lost their Biden in McCarthy, their Kamala — the second-ranking member, Steve Scalise — couldn’t muster the votes, and now their Bernie — the leader of the hard-right conservatives, Jim Jordan — has come up short.

And now, candidates are coming out of the woodwork. In fact, nine Republican House members have thrown their hats in the ring. All nine are men; eight are white. The average American voter outside each candidate’s home district has probably never heard of any of them. It’s unclear if any of the nine can win the necessary 217 votes it takes to become Speaker.

The early leading candidate is Tom Emmer, the number three Republican in the House. He’s the whip, but how can he whip the necessary votes when MAGA world is already rejecting him? That’s the problem with all nine of the candidates: Those capable of winning over the hard-right (Bryon Donalds, Gary Palmer, Mike Johnson) can’t win over the moderates, and the more moderate candidates (Emmer, Kevin Hern, Austin Scott) can’t win over MAGA. For the record, only two candidates — Emmer and Scott — voted to certify the election results in 2020, and Emmer worked against certifying before ultimately agreeing to do so.

I don’t see any of these nine candidates breaking the logjam. A vote is expected as soon as tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Liz Cheney has not ruled out a bid for President in 2024. I don’t know how she thinks she could win, but also, I can’t see her taking votes away from anyone but Trump. If she’s going to end up as the No Labels candidate, then bring it on?

One brief note on the Israel/Gaza conflict: The NYTimes issued not a retraction nor an apology but an “Editor’s Note” acknowledging that they reported “claims by Hamas government officials” about the Gaza hospital bombing last week without providing proper context — in other words, the Times, in the way it framed the story in the hours after the bombing, led readers to believe that the claims made by Hamas were accurate. For the record, CNN, U.S. Intelligence, Canadian intelligence, and French intelligence have all independently verified that it was a rocket misfire from Gaza. Al Jazeera’s independent investigation, however, has suggested otherwise. Hamas officials, nevertheless, have been unable to provide evidence of their assertions.

Finally, why is Ivanka at Kim Kardashian’s birthday party? Never forget that rich people always put wealth over politics.