“The House Freedom Caucus is a lot like that kid that you see in the grocery store aisle throwing a temper tantrum over whether they can get a box of Cocoa Puffs. The child did not learn that behavior that day. They learned over time that type of behavior works,” a senior GOP aide said in an email. The next leaders “must break the cycle of rewarding bad behavior.”…

McCarthy heightened some party fears that he’s not ready for prime time after he implied to Fox News that the special GOP-led House Benghazi committee had succeeded by harming the poll numbers of Hillary Clinton.

“The feeling is if we just do a bump-up for everybody — Patrick McHenry becomes whip, Scalise becomes leader and McCarthy becomes Speaker — our voters will become apoplectic. And so that’s what’s driving a lot of this,” said one Freedom Caucus leader, who is pushing Gowdy for Speaker.

“Trey Gowdy is very popular among our base. And I think we all recognize someone from the Freedom Caucus is not going to get elected.”