GOP unlikely to oust Boehner as Speaker
Both Cantor and McCarthy benefit from not having to take full responsibility for the legislative brawls of the upcoming 113th Congress.
And Ryan, who is presumed to be eyeing a run for the White House in 2016, can hardly afford to have his brand tarnished by leading a gang of House Republicans with single-digit approval ratings.
Then there’s this problem: no one has said how they’d handle the brawls with Obama differently. Leading conservatives considered the most likely to vote against Boehner didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“There’s no ‘better plan’ to get the House GOP out of this mess, i.e., ‘If I were speaker, I would do ‘X’ as an alternative,’” explained one House Republican.
A GOP aide echoed that: “[N]o outsider, were there even a path for them – which there isn’t – has any interest in doing this dirty work. They don’t want to have to meet with the president, work with Harry Reid, or even Mitch McConnell. They want to stay pure, and the only way to do that is to shout from bleachers.”
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Weasels – there are no real men left in DC, none.
Schadenfreude on December 30, 2012 at 3:21 PM
GOPe unlikely to do anything to upset their applecart.
davidk on December 30, 2012 at 3:26 PM
The GOp House had BETTER dump the Crybaby. He’s a total failure and has been working to undermine conservatives while he aids and abets Barky and the lunatic dems for two years, now – even more if you count what an ineffective POS he was as minority leader during the ObamaScare fight, when the Crybaby couldn’t even bring himself to force one of the myriad 2000+ page bills to be fully read on the floor in order to try and slow the forcing process down.
The Crybaby must go. No ifs, ands, or buts. He has to be dumped.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on December 30, 2012 at 3:26 PM
No one wants it.. Seriously, Ryan really wants to be President. Cantor really wants to be Speaker but a successful one. Boehner would be gone if Romney won. He is a useful target however so he’ll stay.
Illinidiva on December 30, 2012 at 3:30 PM
Shouting from the bleachers, the only way to stay pure, and the “purest” of the True Conservatives(TM) are ALL those who hold no responsibility to perform any action, only disagree, rabble rouse, and sit back.
Curious that, no?
Genuine on December 30, 2012 at 3:30 PM
GOP unlikely to learn any lessons from self-inflicted loss(es) of 2012, just as they failed to learn any lessons from self-inflicted loss(es) of 2008.
Say hello to President Hillary, come 2016.
Kent18 on December 30, 2012 at 3:33 PM
Brilliant defense of the Crybaby, dipsh!t. I’ll bet you were screaming about what a genius he was when he managed to wrangle the Sequester out of Barky and the Dems in return for opening the credit flood gates for them … the Sequester that he’s running away from, now, as fast as he can, as if it were space aliens who dropped the Sequester on us. Get a brain.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on December 30, 2012 at 3:33 PM
Bullsh*t, nobody’s going to tell me that a Bachmann or a Gowdy or Duffy or Pence, Sensenbrenner, Noam, Mack, etc., etc., wouldn’t take over the House leadership if given a chance. There just pushed aside by the entrenched GOP rule.
lowandslow on December 30, 2012 at 3:34 PM
I don’t hold Boehner responsible for anything that’s happened in the fiscal cliff crap. The election dealt him a bad hand that he was never going to win with. However, as the face of the GOP he is horrible. By default, the Speaker of the House will be seen in through the near future as the nation’s leading Republican. We need somebody with vision and communication skills in this position. Boehner doesn’t have these skills.
Mark1971 on December 30, 2012 at 3:34 PM
Who wants the abuse that we’ve been throwing at Boehner?
thebrokenrattle on December 30, 2012 at 3:44 PM
Genuinely stupid is still stupid.
Schadenfreude on December 30, 2012 at 3:47 PM
Genuine’s right. Who do you have in mind to replace Boehner and what are you going to do to make it happen?
thebrokenrattle on December 30, 2012 at 3:48 PM
Never say Politico always reports on disagreement in the Republican Party!
HitNRun on December 30, 2012 at 3:51 PM
thebrokenrattle on December 30, 2012 at 3:48 PM
Pack it up, weasels.
Schadenfreude on December 30, 2012 at 3:51 PM
Who’s your replacement and what are you going to do to make it reality?
thebrokenrattle on December 30, 2012 at 3:54 PM
Again, what sort of retarded defense of the Crybaby is that? He sucks and needs to be thrown out. Period. It doesn’t matter who replaces him since no one could do any worse. You seem to think that no one else wants to be #2 in line to the presidency …. as if.
If the Crybaby had any integrity, at all, he’d take himself out. But, we’ve gotten to a sad place in our culture where failure is not looked at as a disqualification. We have proven failures happily taking new terms over and over. It’s beyond pathetic. And the silly argument by people such as you, that everyone else is scared to take the abuse (LOL), is even more pathetic.
I ask you what I asked that Genuine douche, did you celebrate when the Crybaby first made Barky and the Dems give up the great Sequester “compromise” in order to allow them to continue their insane, un-Constitutional, unbudgeted spending free-for-all for the duration of the election campaign? Did you think it genius back then? Then why is the Crybaby scared of the “deal” he managed to squeeze out of the Indonesian and his lunatic junta now?
Some of you people are just silly beyond belief.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on December 30, 2012 at 3:56 PM
Anyone with a pair. Plus, Boehner is not “abused”. He is an unprincipled hack and eunuch.
Schadenfreude on December 30, 2012 at 3:57 PM
Are they in worse shape than Newsweek?
cw10036 on December 30, 2012 at 3:59 PM
I don’t see how Ryan would make a good President and Cantor a good Speaker if neither man is willing to take on a challenge. It’s not that I was planning on supporting either man; but, if what you are saying is true, this only confirms why neither man should be elevated in a leadership position.
aryeung on December 30, 2012 at 4:00 PM
Names, guys, names. Tangible, realistic names. Anything else is just fantasizing.
thebrokenrattle on December 30, 2012 at 4:01 PM
I’d name you but you’re like Boehner and Genuine.
Schadenfreude on December 30, 2012 at 4:03 PM
Maintaining the status quo really translates to a leftward shift. Sadly, Boehner may be doing more damage than good. At this point, I’d support any symbolic challenge to Boehner, if only for the good. So as for names: anyone but Boehner. Of course, just like with Obama v Romney, the “anyone but” strategy will fail in the end.
aryeung on December 30, 2012 at 4:05 PM
A leader gets out in front of the cameras early and often (starting months ago) loaded with facts and figures that show specifically how a reverting to the Clinton tax rates affects each tax-paying group. A listed description of how Obysmal and Reid have changed the bargaining stances (and essentially lied to the American people). Repeating that Reid’s Senate has shelved every House-passed bill to resolve the problem would certainly help. Describe what Reid rejected. Let the voters know that a budget has not been in existence for nearly four years because of Reid’s refusal to follow the Constitution.
We all know these issues because we follow politics. The average Joe never gets this information because the Republican leadership never aggressively share the information.
onlineanalyst on December 30, 2012 at 4:05 PM
If Boehner wanted to give Obama what he wants because he embraced the “Let it Burn” philosophy, that would be one thing. That would be the act of a leader, even if everyone didn’t agree with it.
He could say that Obama won the election and the public should be prepared to live with the consequences, setting up his party for a recovery when Obama fails (news flash: socialism still doesn’t work, and negotiating with it is just splitting the difference with failure).
That’s not what he’s doing. He’s mewling and blubbering and triangulating and sending out his underlings to stab the Tea Party and stripping conservatives of their committee assignments for not caving.
HitNRun on December 30, 2012 at 4:12 PM
If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve.
thebrokenrattle on December 30, 2012 at 4:13 PM
Hey, who actually LIKES and respects that orange clown? Anybody? I’m serious here. Same goes for that joke of a candidate Mittens Flopney. Why the hell does the Republican Party promote and put into their most powerful slots slimey worms who NOBODY actually LIKES, nor trusts, nor respects?
At least the dems are capable of promoting their scum that can generate personality cults. And whom their base fully embrace and trust to push their backwards agenda.
R’s are so fail its ridiculous.
Daikokuco on December 30, 2012 at 4:13 PM
This was Boehner’s response to the MTP interview as an addendum to John Hayward’s column at Human Events:
Now remarks such as these should have been made repeatedly and pre-emptively by Boehner, not as a reaction. Who even hears or reads this message?
Look at all of the Dems who have been clogging up the Sunday programs since before the election. They spout their talking points, and no leader is coming forth to shut them down and/or refute them.
onlineanalyst on December 30, 2012 at 4:21 PM
Exactly, HitNRun.
onlineanalyst on December 30, 2012 at 4:23 PM
Americans don’t elect a President to “lead”. The President just runs the Executive branch, which is supposed to be limited in its scope and responsibilities (not that the Crybaby or anyone has tried to limit Barky’s insane abuses of power). Americans are not yearning for a “leader”. We are not led by some King. We want only a competent Chief Executive – which, of course, is beyond the Indonesian’s capabilities as he is about the dumbest, most inept, most incompetent person America has ever seen in high office – thanks to affirmative action, generally.
The President has veto power over legislation but that does not mean that he is elected to be leading anything. Everyone is elected to carry out the specific duties of their jobs, not to turn America into some insane, un-Constitutional variation on a Euro-style party-oriented, unseparated parliamentary system.
The Crybaby needs to understand the difference between requiring mere good faith in a negotiation partner rather than insisting that “he lead”. But, the Crybaby hasn’t the guts to just say the clear truth – that Barky has never negotiated ANYTHING in good faith in his whole miserable, retarded life. It is the Crybaby’s folly to keep treating the Indonesian Dog-Eating Imbecile as if he has any sense of good faith, at all. Barky negotiates in the same way that you see arabs and muslims negotiate. They lie like banshees, mess everything up and then blame it on everyone else, and when push comes to shove they cry that they are being abused. This is how Barky has always operated and anyone who treats Barky with respect that he hasn’t earned gets repeatedly stabbed in the back. This is all well-known. It’s only the Weeper of the House who still thinks that he needs to treat the Dog-Eater as if he were a normal Westerner, which he most clearly is anything but.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on December 30, 2012 at 4:32 PM
correct, they get a camera, and start with some committee argument. Who’s he working for? The Committee
Basically, this is how he created the Cliff in the first place. Never trust a man who ties his own hands, and then weeps because he is now ‘helpless’. The guy weeps for the camera, and maybe for the WAPO, but he cracks nuks in his cozy little meetings with dissenters
Regarding Boehner’s MTP speech:
No one listens. Boehner isn’t talking to the public. He needed to say a few short, hard sentences, the exact equivalent of what the Left is lobbing. Depending on the circumstances ..This has to stop. The public is being killed. Print more money and we all go down. I am digging in my heels, because if we do not, the economy collapses…
He won’t talk like this, because he is afraid the economy will collapse, or at least various enterprises of people who back him, including his own power base. It’s going down anyway. He had his chance and instead bought into the Cliff – with the idea he could use it to kill off the Tea Party, and then return to Happy Days.
No one outside can pick a new Speaker, especially with non secret ballot. He already had at least one Tea Party rep turn into a squealing worm when he got cut off committee. Such wimps will vote Boehner when the camera is on them.
To replace Boehner, they have to do what Reagan did, clean out the party bottom up. That is why the RINOs fear Tea Party
The Tea Party is not dead, despite what the party doctors say
Heh Der SchadenMann, yes. To slay the dragon, check the size of the dragon’s shadow. Then, do not share your battle plans with the dragon’s nest
entagor on December 30, 2012 at 5:01 PM
To the people who are so smitten with themselves for asking for names to replace Boehner, what name given would suddenly make Boehner an effective Speaker? If ineffective lifetime politicians are the only ones in line or even in the vicinity of the Speaker position, does that mean everyone should shut up and just let business as usual continue? Or maybe we can voice our opinion and put pressure on to try someone/something different. It’s the people supporting him who want things to continue as they have the past few years. It ain’t workin’.
Dongemaharu on December 30, 2012 at 5:07 PM
http://www.speaker.gov/press-release/boehner-president-obama-should-lead-not-cast-blame
davidk on December 30, 2012 at 5:37 PM
Good riddance to the GOP, I hope they drag the Democrats down with them and they both drown!
FloatingRock on December 30, 2012 at 5:38 PM
No, don’t you get it yet? Boehner represents the GOP perfectly! They are doing exactly what they want to do, raising taxes and increasing spending, and they’ve rigged it to blame the tea party in the process. The tea party has already long since been destroyed, August ’11 I believe it was, but now the GOP still resurrects it at times like this in order to blame it for their own wrongdoing.
Boehner isn’t a failure, he’s not incompetent, he is a servant of his crony masters. It is they he and most of the rest of them serve, not the American People. That’s why they’re going to make him the speaker again regardless. They’re not the stupidest people in America, they’re the most corrupt.
FloatingRock on December 30, 2012 at 5:44 PM
I was going to say this but he said it better. Until real pain hits as in there is no more free stuff this will continue. No debt limit increase is my vote. Cut it off and let them scream. Bet they won’t.
BullShooterAsInElk on December 30, 2012 at 5:54 PM
Boehner and the GOP would rather break their promises to the American people not to raise taxes than they would break the promises they made to their cronies to keep sending bigger and bigger corporate welfare checks year after year in return for bigger and bigger campaign donations and other favors.
We are America no more, we no longer control our government, our government controls us, and the sooner people figure this out the sooner we might be able to do something about it.
We need to shake people awake, kick them in the rear until they pull their heads out of the sand about what is going on in this nation before young people use their well hones video game skills to save themselves from all the old vultures picking the flesh from the bones of their futures.
FloatingRock on December 30, 2012 at 5:54 PM
Gingrich should apply and fight like the life of the land depends on it. He’d redeem his soul a tad and the land deserves the fight.
Schadenfreude on December 30, 2012 at 5:56 PM
I agree, that’s common sense. People and nations in too much debt need to cut up or put away their credit cards.
But although Boehner and the GOP will pretend like they’ve been dragged kicking and screaming to raise the debt limit, in the end they will gladly raise the debt ceiling so they can keep sending corporate welfare checks to their crony masters.
FloatingRock on December 30, 2012 at 6:05 PM
The CINO’s are wimps. They’ll betray their own Speaker, but won’t step forward to take on his position. All they want is to blame, whine and spout rhetoric. Dumb and dumber. Like Obama, they’re good at campaigning, but Governing is a whole other ballgame.
tommy71 on December 30, 2012 at 6:11 PM
The Speaker of the House doesn’t have to be a House member and with a lot of (outside) help, I’m willing to lead.
Speaker of the House FloatingRock sounds fine to me, and I’m pretty sure I am the sort who will resist the temptations of power.
FloatingRock on December 30, 2012 at 6:48 PM