OPINION:
When I was on Capitol Hill 15 years ago, there was a low-level aide who was viewed almost as a leper. He had been a high-level aide until one day, he decided he was so high-level and well connected that he attempted to orchestrate a coup of sorts during the Republican leadership elections.
Legend had it there was a dramatic scene when he opened the door to the meeting expecting to be hailed by the usurpers who had answered his call to overturn the chosen slate but instead got fired by his would-be usurpers.
As things stand now, a move to upend the election of Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House speaker would seem likely to meet a similar fate. He got 188 votes of the 218 he would need to be elected in a Republican-only vote last month. That’s enough to scare off most challengers, but it is not enough to elect Mr. McCarthy speaker. And if Matt Gaetz and others are to be believed, he can’t get to 218 now or perhaps at any point in the future.
The call will go out, in the name of not screwing this up, to put aside differences, extract what concessions you can and choke down a McCarthy speakership for the sake of progress. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene has said she won’t stand by and let Democrats share power over disputes about the speakership, even if that means voting for Mr. McCarthy.
Don’t heed that call. It won’t bring progress. What it will bring is a leader who has established he’s not all that effective or loyal to the causes Republicans hold dear.
Look at the recent midterms. Yes, Republicans managed to squeak across the line and take the majority. And yes, Mr. McCarthy did raise a lot of money and distribute it to many needy candidates.
Still, it took more than a week after the election for 218 seats to be declared to be in Republican hands. Now Mr. McCarthy has the barest of majorities, a flank absolutely opposed to him and a track record that screams: “Find another candidate!”
Democrats are crowing that the overturning of Roe v. Wade gave them a chance to hang on in this election. Others say Republicans never made the case for what they would do differently about the very real problems they did campaign about — inflation, crime, immigration and energy policy. Still others say Republicans were just too extreme.
Whose fault is that? Here in the Washington suburbs, Democratic incumbent Janet Wexton, who represents Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, was able to run an ad entitled “7 Things to Know About Hung Cao,” her opponent, and no effort was ever made to dispute the mischaracterizations or make the case for the accurate assertions. Instead, we got a PAC ad slamming Nancy Pelosi, who is no pariah in a government dominated by government employees and contractors.
Whose fault is it that Republicans got hammered on abortion? Ask if people think abortion should be prohibited, and about 60% will say no. Ask if abortion should be permitted up to the time of birth or beyond — which is what the Democrats actually are for — and support drops to less than 15%.
Why not something from the speaker that said, “We fought for nearly 50 years to get this decision at the state level, and now is the time for states to debate it and find their own path”? Pro-lifers wouldn’t have loved it, but they would have understood it and supported the candidates who said it. The 45% who oppose both prohibition of abortion and late-term abortion would’ve afforded Republicans a healthy majority.
Where was the simple “As Republicans, we’ll stop Joe Biden’s wild spending bills and do our best to cut your taxes and let you keep more of your own money”?
How did Mr. McCarthy not see that Yesli Vega in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District and Neil Parrott in Maryland’s 6th, a district that became much more competitive after a redraw of the district, were competitive and could get over the finish line with a little help? Ms. Vega led till the last box of ballots, and Mr. Parrott led for several days until he was finally overtaken.
With the president’s approval ratings in the low 40s, inflation higher than it had been in 40 years and utter chaos on the border, Republicans should have cleaned up in this election, not limped to 218 a week and a half after the vote.
Now the guy who almost screwed up a pat hand wants to be in charge, and the party seems willing to let him. There’s something wrong with that, and the time to fix it is now.
• Brian McNicoll, a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Virginia, is a former senior writer for The Heritage Foundation and former director of communications for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
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