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Over the course of four days and 15 ballots, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., won the race for House speaker. It will take some time to determine whether the concessions, promises and compromises he made will embolden the California Republican or ultimately undermine his efforts to be an effective leader. Straight Arrow News contributor Ruben Navarrette believes that if McCarthy had more humility, his bumpy road to victory might have awarded him some valuable life lessons.
Poor Kevin McCarthy.
Apparently when it comes to electing a House speaker from members of your own caucus, mind you, including some ingrate holdouts who you helped put in office by fundraising for them, the 15th ballot is the charm. That’s how long it took over the course of a few days for Republicans to finally weaken the intra-party resistance and scrape up just enough votes to put the California Republican over the top and into the speaker seat.
Only then could the GOP finally get this show on the road – the show being the official Republican pushback against anything and everything coming out of the Biden administration, even those policies that President Biden – “Mr. Moderate” – pilfered from Republicans.
The liberal pro-democratic media was so giddy at the sight of the GOP imploding, and its presumed leader being disemboweled on national television by his own tribe, that it was distracted and didn’t do a very good job of covering the preemptive coup against McCarthy, which was easily one of the biggest political stories of the last 20 years. Republican-hating reporters, anchors and pundits kept parroting the line that the whole GOP-led spectacle was embarrassing and humiliating for McCarthy and the whole Republican Party.
Well, yeah, sure, maybe, but forgive me, I’ve covered politics and politicians for nearly 35 years. I learned a long time ago that elected officials, especially career politicians like McCarthy are not capable of being embarrassed. They’re often beyond shame, beyond humiliation. In fact, as if to illustrate that point, once McCarthy finally ascended to the podium and clutch the gavel, he made a joke about how tumultuous the whole process had been: “Well, that was easy,” he quipped, as members from both parties roared with laughter.
