The RNC has 168 members who will vote on a chair— and over 100 have already pledged to reelect Ronna Romney McDaniel to a 4th term. They’re impressed how well she navigated the waters between the Forever-Trumpers and… the less enthusiastic. If she wins, she’ll be the longest-serving RNC head since the first first one (1856-1864). Her most formidable opponent, Lee Zeldin, has already announced, sullenly, that he’s not going to run but she still has two Trump fanatics too deal with— Harmeet Dhillon and the MyPillow guy, crackpot Mike Lindell, who is likely to get zero votes and then blame Venezuela.
Luckily for McDaniels, her record of failure is obscured by the loud and increasingly-hated Trump who is easy to blame everything on, without even saying it out loud. This morning, she was on the air with John Catsimatidis making excuses for the GOP’s dismal midterm performance. It did dawn on her that the Republicans’ reactionary approach to women’s Choice may have done them in. “It was probably a bigger factor than a lot of people though. We’ve got to get conversant on that. We can’t just do an ostrich method and pretend that it doesn’t exist when Democrats are spending $30 million on that message.” She admitted that the issue lost them Pennsylvania, the only Senate seat to flip.
Republican Party disarray has obviously been hurting them at the polls. She told Catsimatidis that “We can’t hate each other so much that we forget what the Democrats are doing to this country. We can’t be so mad at each other that we say, ‘I’m not going to vote for this Republican because they like this candidate, or they’re a RINO or establishment or MAGA.” The intra-party Republican civil war is just getting started and she thinks she can stop it by whining to a New York City billionaire on his radio show.
“Unity is going to be the word of the day if we’re going to win in 2023 and 2024,” she said. “But if we have infighting no one is attracted to our party.” That’s right, Ronna— and that infighting is just getting going. Ever talk with Kevin McCarthy? According to Politico this morning, the Freedom Caucus fascists are fretting that, although, they can kill McCarthy’s bid to become Speaker, they have no plausible alternative who can be elected by their whole conference. Colorado brain surgeon Lauren Boebert— who may or may not be a member of the 118th Congress— is quietly pushing for Lee Zeldin, a McCarthy supporter who lost his face for New York governor next month, now that he’s neither returning to Congress nor running for RNC chair.
South Carolina fascist Ralph Norman also has a non-member in mind, former Rep, Jim Bridenstine (OK), who “says” he’s not interested. (Politico speculates that Norman is the weak link in the anti-McCarthy wall and may buckle in the end.) Other alternatives to McCarthy are Steve Scalise (LA)— although one member told me he’s almost as disliked as McCarthy— and Gym Jordan.
One thing everyone agrees on is that the only declared candidate, Andy Biggs (AZ) isn’t viable and will never get any support beyond a couple of dozen Nazis. He says he’s “only a placeholder acting as a conduit for the right flank’s frustrations. And adamant opponents to the California Republican argue there’s little incentive for a “consensus” candidate to throw their hat into the ring right now. Such a move, they say, would only alienate the McCarthy supporters that a challenger would ultimately need to be elected— and put a target on their back. ‘I think people realize … if somebody were to come out now and we didn’t deliver enough votes to stop McCarthy, that there would be a real potential for blowback. So I think that people are interested, they’ve expressed it to some of us,’ the Arizona Republican and Freedom Caucus member said.”
[T]here is dueling pressure on the five McCarthy opponents. A grassroots base that is not keen on McCarthy has encouraged the group’s efforts, but powerful conservative names have started to lambast the rebellion— like conservative Fox News host Mark Levin going after Biggs. In the middle is a swath of Freedom Caucus members who haven’t yet said how they’ll vote on Jan. 3 and have continued to push for rules changes to empower themselves and other rank-and-file members.
“The Freedom Caucus … [is] not always going to agree and that’s the way this place is supposed to function,” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA said.
It’s hardly the first time the Freedom Caucus has publicly cracked. The group has been having a post-Trump identity crisis as it debates its future in a GOP-controlled House starting in January. But that crisis reached the point where some members have been excluded from anti-McCarthy strategy meetings, as Biggs and other opponents try to ascertain who is actually partaking in their challenge to the GOP leader.
And despite the swirl of drama around the speaker fight, conservatives believe their tactics are at least partially paying off, leading to some rules concessions. Leadership has, however, shot down many of their more significant proposals that would have significantly curtailed McCarthy’s power.
Some are making a renewed push for those measures. Five Republicans who have not publicly said how they plan to vote— despite attending anti-McCarthy planning meetings as observers— have put forward a letter demanding the ability to move to depose the speaker without having a majority of the GOP conference, as well as other demands that include leadership staying out of primaries. The letter was signed by Perry and Roy, plus Reps. Dan Bishop (R-NC), Andrew Clyde (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) as well as two members-elect.
But according to one member who attended a meeting Thursday with McCarthy and some members making this new push, the GOP leader already dismissed their demands, which led them to issue the letter publicly.
Others say it is just a start: One McCarthy ally said the leader had worked “tirelessly” to address concerns about conference rules and committee assignments.
Additionally, Freedom Caucus members are closely watching the race for the top spot on the Homeland Security Committee, hoping a second member in their ranks will get a panel gavel. Freedom Caucus Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) is running against Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) for the role.
“I got nothing against Crenshaw. He’s a great guy, too. But Mark is a member of the Freedom Caucus and he’s a great member, so yeah, I think that matters some,” said Jordan, who’s expected to lead the Judiciary Committee next year.
Eventually, McCarthy is expected to fold to all Freedom Caucus demands— from stabbing his own allies in the back regarding committee chairs to even agreeing to the vacate the chair rule that Paul Ryan is urging him to never give in on. Meanwhile, on the Senate side of the Capitol, the all-out war between Mitch McConnell and ambitious Trump surrogate Rick Scott will be settled once one of them dies and is buried.