Consider yourselves warned, eh? Yes, Paul Ryan says he’ll take the job of Speaker of the House of Representatives, but only if the Republicans really, really love him. This means, among other things, that they all have to vote for him, that he gets his weekends off, that he doesn’t have to spend a lot of time raising money, and that any changes to existing internal procedures and protocols be signed off by “everyone”—in other words, no special favors to special interest groups. Because we Republicans hate affirmative action, don’t we, Republican House Freedom Caucus?
Yeah, Republican House Freedom Caucus, Paul Ryan is talkin’ to you! Paulie has put the ball in the FC’s court and presumably thinks he’s pretty clever for having done so. Hey, FC, do you really want to be the turd in the Party’s punch bowl?
Well, maybe they do and maybe they don’t. As I’ve said before, it would be a bit ridiculous for the FC crazies, having brought down the hated Boehner, to replace him with “Super Boehner,” a new speaker with more power than the old one. On the other hand, it’s quite plausible that the FC will figure that, if they do nix Ryan, they will make themselves so hated that the rest of the Party will just run right over them, even making deals with the hated Democrats in the process. But if the FC does say yes, I have a feeling that Paulie may have just sold himself a pig in a poke.
Consider: John Boehner worked his butt off as Speaker and as a national leader of the Republican Party. According to an AP story posted last year by Philip Elliott and James MacPherson, “John Boehner Is A Fundraising Machine”, John Boehner is, well, a fundraising machine.
“House Speaker John Boehner’s fundraising skills put him in a class with few others. He has scooped up more than $43 million for accounts under his direct control and helped amass tens of millions more for Republican allies.
“The Ohio lawmaker accounts for about one-fifth of the cash collected by House Republicans’ campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee. Boehner has written almost $18 million in checks to the group, which has raised $101 million this campaign cycle.”
Color me skeptical, but I think a guy with $43 million in his pocket is going to have more friends than a guy who doesn’t. Paul Ryan sounds to me very much a like a prima donna who somehow thinks he’s going to phone it in, and everyone will do what he says because he’s so goddamn cute. Well, Paulie’s the career politician, not me, but I think he’d better fasten his seatbelt, and fasten it tight. Cause he may be in for a bumpy flight.
Afterwords
Nick Gillespie, writing for ”Reason”, has a nice take on l’affaire Paulie here. The National Review, which ought to know about such things, says that Ryan sought to placate the right-wing crazies (my term, not theirs) by “hinting strongly” that he wouldn’t bring an immigration bill to the House floor this year. Well, color me crazy, but I don’t see how that’s a “concession.” Pressure from the Republican base has crushed, with ease, any attempt at “reform” in the past. How likely is it that Republicans would now give President Obama a going away present? I suspect that Ryan would never bring an immigration bill to the floor, because if he did so the Republican Party would reveal itself to be the mangy, hysterical pack of mouth-breathing knuckle-walkers they are.
