Oct.23

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Here Are the Nine Contestants

In the 1950s, there was a TV show on NBC called Queen for a Day in which women would tell tales of woe about their financial or emotional situations. Some needed medical care for a sick child, or a hearing aid, or a new refrigerator. Many cried as they made their cases. At the end of the show the studio audience voted by clapping. The woman who got the most decibels won. She would be draped in a sable-trimmed velvet robe while the host read a list of extra prizes she was getting in addition to what she had requested. Many of the prizes were donated by companies who thought the huge good publicity greatly outweighed the cost of the product or service they were donating. Today we have GoFundMe and GiveSendGo, where fake elector Cathy Latham is still stuck at $22,000 and 2,800 prayers.

The House seems to be running a variant of this; call it Speaker Candidate for a Day. The contestants all tell the audience (the GOP caucus) why they deserve to be speaker more than the other contestants, and then someone is chosen to be speaker-designate for a day. Then the full House drops a new refrigerator on that person and it starts all over. For tomorrow's show, the deadline has now passed and there are nine contestants. This evening they will all make their case and today or tomorrow one of them will be the so-called winner. Whether someone who gets even 100 votes can suddenly get the entire caucus behind him and get 217 votes on the floor of the House remains to be seen. Here are the contestants, in alphabetical order.

• Jack Bergman (R-MI): He is a retired Lieutenant General and can make the case that he is devoted to his country. He is chairman of the Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations. Four Michigan Republicans have endorsed him. He wants all Republicans to agree to support the guy who gets the most votes on the secret ballot. Good luck with that. Also good luck with him being the guy who gets the most votes. He could well be the guy who gets the least number of votes. Former flag officers do not tend to serve in leadership positions in Congress, generally speaking.
  
  
• Byron Donalds (R-FL): He is Black. That makes him stand out in a crowd of Republican congressmen as there are not a lot of Black men (four in total) in that group. And he is an ultraconservative member of the Freedom Caucus. That really makes him stand out. He has repeatedly said that Joe Biden is not the legitimate president. That doesn't make him stand out at all. If the entire Republican caucus was unwilling to vote for an experienced white FC member, Jim Jordan (R-OH), as speaker, an inexperienced Black guy could have a problem.
  
  
• Tom Emmer (R-MN): As the highest ranking House Republican who hasn't already been chewed up and spit out, Emmer is the logical choice as he has won caucus-wide elections before. He is currently majority whip. He also once ran the NRCC, which means that everyone he gave money to, back when he controlled the money faucet, ought to be grateful to him. Yesterday, Kevin McCarthy endorsed him. In fact, much of the Republican establishment supports him. His campaign comes down to his promise that he will never make a promise he can't fulfill. Given the tiny margin the speaker will be working with, the only way to fulfill that promise is to never promise anything to anyone. Is he a shoo-in? Not exactly, as there is one important Republican who strongly opposes him: a guy named Donald Trump. Trump's gripe? Emmer voted to certify Joe Biden's election. Although Emmer is qualified and popular, there is a pretty good chance that Trump will convince many Republicans to pick someone else. Emmer might well get the most votes within the caucus and thus become the official nominee, but woe be it to any Republican who votes for him on the floor of the House. We strongly suspect there will be at least five Trumpy holdouts on the floor vote. So if Emmer gets the caucus nod with a bare plurality, he is likely to be speaker candidate for a day, and then we start all over.
  
  
• Kevin Hern (R-OK): As chairman of the large conservative Republican Study Group, Hern is well-known and well-liked. He owns 18 McDonald's franchises near Tulsa, OK, as well as a hog farm, a bank, and multiple other businesses. He is very wealthy and has called welfare spending "tragic." If mothers on welfare worked hard, they could also own 18 McDonald's franchises and a hog farm and wouldn't need welfare. Simple, right? He also voted to overturn the election, so Trump could get behind him if it comes to that. Hern's campaign pitch: "People want to be heard, they want to be valued, and I think that's what you're seeing right now. There's a lot of historical relationships that some are not going to ever be able to work around, and I don't have those negatives out there." What does that mean? Did he just say something? If so, we can't figure out what it is.
  
  
• Mike Johnson (R-LA): As a lawyer and former radio host, Johnson is good at speaking, so he thinks he'd make a great speaker. As a lawyer, he worked for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is aimed at increasing the influence of Christianity in public schools. While in the Louisiana House, he sponsored legislation to protect people who wished to discriminate against gay people. In the U.S. House, he supported Donald Trump's attempt to ban anyone from seven Muslim countries from entering the U.S. He also opposes the use of medical marijuana. Johnson is a close ally of Trump, having served on his defense team during both impeachment trials in the Senate. He chaired the Republican Study Committee before Hern got the job. Now he is vice chairman. In a letter to his colleagues, he suggested that he is their man because he will humble himself before God every day. Nice try, but God is not a voting member of the caucus.
  
  
• Dan Meuser (R-PA): His pitch is to be inclusive, by which he means all members of the Republican caucus should be part of policy making, not just the speaker. Members who think the speaker has too much power might support him. In 2020, he opposed counting the electoral votes from four states, including his own state. Meuser is a backbencher and not well known so it seems unlikely he will be able to beat heavyweights like Emmer and Hern in the secret ballot.
  
  
• Gary Palmer (R-AL): Palmer is another backbencher with delusions of grandeur. He is a member of the FC and the Republican Study Committee. Also, he voted to reject the electoral votes in four states. But that is unlikely to do the job since other, better-known, members have the same qualifications.
  
  
• Pete Sessions (R-TX): Now we come to a heavyweight. He once chaired the NRCC, so a number of members owe their seat to him and now is the time to call in those chits. He was also a previous chair of the powerful House Rules Committee, so he understands the legislative process well, just in case some Republicans get inspired and decide to pass some laws. He is now in his 11th term, so he has plenty of experience. He also voted against certifying Biden's election. In Republicanland, trying to overturn an election gets you bonus points. Back in St. Ronald of Reagan's day that wasn't the case, but now it is. Sessions is a bit more moderate (say, less radical) than most of the others.
  
  
• Austin Scott (R-GA): He ran against Jordan on a lark and got 81 votes. This gave him a swelled head and thoughts that the next 136 should be easy. It won't be. Since he voted to certify Joe Biden's election, Donald Trump will oppose him if he gets the caucus nod, which seems unlikely, even though he has been in the House since 2011. His pitch: "I don't necessarily want to be the Speaker of the House. I want a House that functions correctly, but the House is not functioning correctly right now." Good point there, Austin, but if you don't want the job, why are you running for it? Fortunately, you will get your wish and will not be elected speaker.
  

So there you have it. When we put a quick table together for Sunday's post, we used whether or not a member signed the election denying amicus brief as our decider for whether or not a member was an election denier. Turns out, even the contenders who did not sign the brief stepped up to try to toss out some EVs. They're all election deniers. Sigh.

We think it would be impressive if any of the nine candidates got even a majority of the caucus. We think the most likely candidates to come out on top of the secret ballot are Emmer, Hern, and Sessions, but all three of them will have a tough battle to get to 217.

Yesterday on CNN, Liz Cheney castigated the House Republican Conference and said the Party has lost its way. She said: "We have to have a party that gets back to advocating those conservative policies, gets back to embracing the Constitution. That is not what the Republican Party is doing today." She is not running for speaker but didn't rule out running for president (as an independent). If she wants to, she needs to get started now. She clearly couldn't win but might get enough votes from traditional Republicans to sink Trump. She definitely would not mind being a spoiler if Trump were the victim. The problem is that she might end up giving Democrats who really don't want to vote for Biden a non-Trump alternative. (V)