Oct.11

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Animal House

That headline seems as good as any to describe the current state of the U.S. House of Representatives, even if the cocaine sex parties apparently ended when Madison Cawthorn left town. There was much information coming out of the south wing of the Capitol yesterday. Here's a rundown of the eight storylines that stood out to us:

1. The Clock Is Ticking: The House Republican Conference held the candidates forum that was promised, with Reps. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) making their respective pitches. Today at 10:00 a.m. ET, there will be an internal vote among Republicans—the results are supposed to remain secret, but that seems unlikely.
   
   There is little clarity as to how close either of the candidates is to the promised land. The most optimistic projection we could find comes from Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA), who thinks it is 50/50 that a new speaker will be elected today. The least optimistic projection we could find comes from Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who thinks there is about a 2% chance a new speaker will be elected today. That's quite a broad spread, but since most Republican members are actively tempering expectations, it's likely Massie is more correct than Garcia is.
   
   
2. Meanwhile, at the Grown-Ups Table: The Democrats also held a candidates forum. It lasted considerably less than an hour, and ended with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) being chosen unanimously as the Democratic candidate for speaker. He won't be elected, of course—no Republicans would vote for a Democrat and, truth be told, we also suspect there are at least a handful of them who would not vote for a Black man (ahem, Paul Gosar).
   
   
3. McCarthyism: After saying he was open to resuming the speakership on Monday, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said yesterday that he did not want to be nominated for the job by his colleagues. That's at least a little different from "I don't want the job, end of sentence." What the purpose of this maneuvering is, we do not know, but there are apparently McCarthy loyalists who want to drag this out, either to give their candidate a chance to return, or to punish those who pushed him out, or both.
   
   
4. "A" Is for "A**h..." Er, Something: Until fairly recently, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) had a reputation as a moderate and as one of the more level-headed members of the Republican Conference. Maybe whatever Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has is contagious, because Mace first sided with the far-right members to boot McCarthy, and then she turned the "look at me" stunt dial up to 10. Yesterday, she showed up to work with a shirt bearing a large, red "A" on it, as Mace claims she's being "persecuted" for her vote to remove McCarthy.
   
   
5. Ghosts of Jordan's Past: As we have noted many times, Jordan was at the center of a serial molestation scandal when he was a wrestling coach at Ohio State. He insists he didn't see anything; very few people who were a part of the program are buying that. Yesterday, four of the wrestlers who were victimized spoke up to warn Americans what they might be getting. "Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?" said one former OSU wrestler. "Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?" If Jordan does get the gig, we suspect we'll be hearing a lot from the wrestlers that were under his tutelage.
   
   
6. A Compromise Position?: Several members are floating the idea of making Scalise the speaker and making Jordan the Majority Leader. That way, everyone wins. Well, except that Scalise and Jordan don't like each other, Jordan would still be an anchor around the necks of moderates next year, and the Freedom Caucusers do not generally settle for compromise positions.
   
   
7. Dubious Polling: Speaking of Jordan and moderates, Politico and several other outlets reported a poll from National Public Affairs that would seem to be good news for the Ohioan. The poll's finding was that "for likely voters in 11 key swing districts, 47 percent would be more likely to back their current GOP representative in 2024 if they picked Jordan for speaker." In other words, maybe Republican members like the Biden 18 can afford to accept Jordan as their candidate if that's what it takes to unify the Republican Conference.
   
   This seems like cherry-picking to us, however. Of course there are some Republican voters in swing districts who like Jordan. The problem is the Republicans (and independents and moderate Democrats) who hate him and might vote (D) if their local (R) is associated with a far-right nutter. Further, even if a swing-district member believes Jordan is broadly acceptable right now, can they really be sure that will be true in a year, if he's given a much higher profile and he's had 12 months to perform a bunch of his special brand of political theater?
   
   
8. Surprise, Surprise: Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC), as we expected he would, has concluded that if push comes to shove, he just might have the authority to bring an aid-for-Israel bill to the floor of the House.

Today is the day the guesswork ends, the rubber meets the road, and we learn if the Republicans can pull together or not. We should know by noon ET or so. (Z)