So Jordan managed to do worse this round than yesterday. Not sure how he manages to become speaker at this point. I dont think McCarthy ever went backwards (and in the early votes he gained votes each round).
That tweet was in the middle of the vote. He lost 22 Republicans today vs 20 yesterday. It's interesting how many GOPers are opposed to ANY concessions to Democrats while simultaneously complaining that this is Dems' fault. There is a super-simple solution here for any Republicans interested in actually governing, but they've been the party of blow-everything-up for so long that they don't actually have any leadership anymore.
The super simple solution of a coalition government would lead to the defeat of likely any Republican who voted that way in a primary challenge and they know that.
You don't even need a coalition government, though. You just need to make a few concessions to Democrats. Two routes: Temporary Speaker: Agree to bring up Ukraine and Israel aid together; agree to move forward on spending bills using the top-line numbers McCarthy agreed to. This is a sort of coalition government. Permanent Speaker: Go get someone from the Problem Solvers' caucus to be the speaker, and agree to the above, plus changing the rules committee a bit and adding a few other rules that Democrats support. Get 150 Republicans and 70 Democrats to vote for him or her. In either case, you still have a Republican speaker in charge with a Republican majority in the House. Maybe it would fail; maybe not. But they at least potentially splinter the Democratic Party moderates and put pressure on them. The problem? Republicans don't even WANT Democratic help. They want to govern only for and with Republicans in a Congress where they control 51% of the vote with a Democratic Senate and President. They can't blame Democrats for this problem when they refuse to even ask for Dems' votes or what they might want. They say "Republicans didn't elect us to work with Democrats" - but that ignores (1) that they represent the American people, not just Republicans; (2) Independents helped elect them (especially in all the swing districts), and (3) Republicans didn't elect them to be incompetent and unable pick a Speaker either.
This a short term fix and it's not even clear it's legal (the temporary speaker with powers). But sure, you could probably get some Democrats on board with this. Unless they gave up the Hastert Rule I don't think Democrats will ever help them with a permanent speaker. Democrats have a political calculus here too. Helping solve this chaos in a way that ends with a Republican speaker and they govern in a bipartisan way could help Republicans in the mid terms.
So Republicans should test your theory. Offer small concessions. Make Democrats reject them. Then they can actually maybe blame the Dems. Having a dysfunctional house that wrecks the government hurts Dems too because Biden will get a lot of the blame. Dems have an incentive to have a functioning government. They can't operate as a chaos party because they hold the Presidency. It's especially relevant because Biden's selling competence. He's not selling hope, or flashiness, or excitement - just competence and getting stuff done. That's a lot easier argument to make when you have a House of Representatives, and even easier if you have a non-crazy Speaker you can work with.
LOL... mccarthy continues to blame Democrats for the republican inability to elect a Speaker of the House.
