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Kevin McCarthy Drops Out of House Speaker Race
Shocking development in the race to replace Speaker of the House John Boehner:
Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has dropped out of elections for House Speaker, shocking Capitol Hill and raising questions about who can possibly lead the House Republican conference.
Republicans were to meet Thursday at noon to elect a new Speaker. Instead, they received the surprising news from McCarthy.
McCarthy dropped out of the race because he did not believe he could reach the 218 votes needed in a public roll-call vote on the floor later this month to be elected Speaker, according to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who spoke to reporters after the GOP meeting adjourned. Issa said McCarthy gave that message to his colleagues, and that McCarthy did not believe he could unite the conference.
McCarthy had struggled to win over conservatives, and while he was the favorite to win the closed-door vote, conservatives insisted he did not have the votes on the floor to win election.
Upon stepping aside, McCarthy did not give his blessing to either remaining candidate: Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah or Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida. The Hill article quotes a Louisiana congressman who now thinks five of six new candidates might decide to run for Speaker.
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Maybe they’ll ask Newt to come back. That seems like a good idea. Newt breathes politics and seems several steps ahead of everyone else.
This is great news. Maybe we’ll get a persuasive Speaker that can string together two grammatically correct sentences in a row. You know; speak.
We need the best we can find to represent us, not Mr. Malaprop.
Well, this should be interesting.
Yes!
Huh… finally some political news worth paying a little attention to.
Another RINO bites the dust.
Surprising, but a bit of a shame.
I was really hoping to be able to deflect cries of “McCarthyism” with the question “What did the Speaker do?”
If they want to reach out beyond current members of the House, why not Tom Coburn?
Very surprising, he seems to have given up rather easily.
Jonah Goldberg suggested this in an article on NR last week.
Starting out with a major gaffe was probably the nail in the coffin of his speakership.
Who is a stick-to-it strategist and unifier who might do a good job, if we were to reach beyond the House?
Scott Walker, anyone?
WOW!,
Sometimes things just happen and we see the hand of Gd. If he hadn’t gone on Hannity and made that huge gaff he would probably be speaker and we’d have Boehner Jr.
Now there is the chance for real change and powerful leadership. I am charged up about this.
Regards,
Jim
I hope it is the gentlemen from Florida. I want conservative websites to forever report on meetings between him and the president as “The Devil and Daniel Webster”
It’s what got him to where he is today.
well, isn’t that the problem with GOP leadership in general?
Thus endith the validation of the “Bro Speakership”
Ahem, ahem, hey Jeb!
When the first public statement of the presumed speaker leaves an aftertaste of foot it’s probably a bad sign.
If only the Big Guy had had him say something equally stupid but just a tad less problematic.
But then, they are His wonders, and He’ll perform them as He sees fit.
Shouldn’t we want someone who can out-negotiate everyone and make the best deals? I mean that’s what everyone complained about with Boehner.
TheRe is one gUy who coMes to mind Pretty obviously, no?
My question: what do they have on Kevin?
But, since you don’t have to be a member of Congress, I say: Trump for Speaker!
There’s going to be a need to pick a “coalition” Speaker since the “freedom” caucus will make it difficult for any republican who’s insufficiently conservative to take the Speaker’s chair.
There were two other people running, and Boehner just cancelled the election so he can install his own guy.
Definitely for the best. McCarthy didn’t have a huge amount of experience, was not known to be a Conservative, and that blunder he had regarding Hillary and the Benghazi investigation was huge. That’s probably what cost him, and I would be on my tippy toes from here on out waiting for another blunder.
It crossed my mind as well.
There were vague rumors going about regarding some potentially troublesome incidents that might hurt him from back when he was here in CA. I dismissed the idea at the time, there were no details, but now I wonder.
Freedom Caucus didnt want another Boehner but his Democratic talking points about Benghazi committee being political was his downfall.
Yes, and not necessarily in a good way. I am not a Boehner supporter, but we should be careful what we wish for.
This is about to be a very good lesson that we vote for people and not against others.
There’s a letter apparently going through the corridors of power that Kevin is having an affair with Renee Ellmers.
You don’t need conspiracy theories. He stepped in it so big over his Benghazi comments this week that it sealed his fate.
I could understand Kristi Noem or Tulsi Gabbard.