Forbesis predicting Speaker Ryan is out in 4 weeks.
From what I read there, it’s more that it could happen, not that they’re predicting it will happen.
An effort to get rid of Ryan in this session would likely provide lots of work for the pundits, but it is unlikely to have any bearing on the real world, this session. (It will certainly have a major impact on the Congress seated in January.)
They are not doing anything serious, now.
Ryan had to be talked into accepting the position, to begin with, and would likely give it up in an instant.
There is NO ONE standing in the wings with the desire and the votes to take over leadership (for seven weeks?) (There are a few nutcases who want that power, but they have too few supporters to take it without a fight.)
Unless the general election seriously changes the make-up of the Republican House, there is likely to be a bloody week or two in January, (with a lot of angry people afterwards), while a new speaker is selected. If they are smart, they will simply make Ryan suffer in that position until the next mid-terms.
But what if he just says “no” in the new Congress? He has to be re-elected, right? What if he doesn’t put his name in?
I dunno.
Part of the reason that he accepted the speakership, this time, appears to have been the hope that he would be able to control the damage to the GOP that the presidential race was inflicting. That will no longer be an issue and I do not know whether he is interested in party leadership, per se.
Chair of the Ways and Means is a pretty powerful job and it may be closer to what he actually wants to accomplish.
If the Far Right really wants to launch a rebellion, there could just be blood running across the floor of the House, Stage Left of the Speaker, for days–maybe weeks. I have no idea what the membership will look like beginning January 3.
According to wiki, each new House has to elect a Speaker. So his term expires when the new House convenes in January, and there’s no requirement for him to put his name forward.
That’s right. I agree that there’s not an obvious successor in the GOP House caucus. And if, as seems increasingly likely, Trump loses bigly on Nov. 8, Ryan just might be able to remain Speaker if he wants to.
I’m certain there was quite a bit of B’rer Rabbit in his protests he didn’t want it this time, but I can’t see any upside for him in taking it again.
Maybe they’ll re-elect Ryan even if he doesn’t want it. That could be interesting - if he gets half+1 of the votes, he’s Speaker, even if he refuses to function as Speaker. I imagine the Republican caucus could finesse that somehow - the Speaker doesn’t have any Constitutional duties, aside from existing.
Or they could bring Boehner back - there is apparently no requirement that the Speaker be a member of the House.
I’m a bit confused. Yes, Ryan was a compromise candidate when selected.
How much info do we have now about the makeup of the next House R caucus? Trump doesn’t seem to have had much coattail effect in the R primaries in the House. At least not in 2016.
So how different really will the R caucus look in Jan than it did six months ago? My take is “not much”.
I have a hard time believing any House R will think their chances in 2018 are better or worse depending on who they voted for as Speaker. For them it’s mostly a non-event.
I suspect Ryan has a the job if he wants it. This will be sort of like recruiting officers for an HOA where there’s usually fewer candidates than there are offices. Finding anyone else who wants to try to herd these vicious cats for the next two years will be difficult. He’ll have it by default if he wants it.
Smaller, even further to the right, and less sane than now, which is saying a lot. The GOP Congresscritters who lose their seats will be the ones in districts with Cook PVI of, say, R+3 rather than R+15, IOW, with only a slight rather than a massive GOP lean.
That’s certainly the facile analysis. But IMO most of the pundits thinking that way are falling into two traps:
A) as the national presidential vote leans more D-ward, so will the vote in every congressional constituency to the same degree.
B) All strongly R districts are the same.
A is wrong mostly because there are plenty of longtime Rs who’ll vote R for congress but not vote for Trump. Said another way, when the polls accurately show those folks as intending to not vote for Trump, pundits mistakenly assume that’ll influence those same voters’ behavior in congressional contests. IMO it won’t.
B) Some strongly R districts are pure redneck. Others are pure Country Club senior executives. The kind of R candidate that appeals to those two constituencies is no different in 2016 than it was in 2008. Doubly so for the fat cat class and the “retired and still leasing a new Mercedes every year” classes.
I think that, depending on how the next 12 months shape up, 2018 may see a lot more Trumpish = populist authoritarian candidates in the Congressional primaries. Or we may not. In either case 2016 is too early to see the consequences of Trumpish.
As a recent historical example …
After Timothy McVeigh shot his wad a lot of the louder white supremacy sovereign citizen groups sorta sat down and shut up for a few years. Whether it was because they didn’t much like seeing just how much mainstream America didn’t take up arms to support their cause or because they didn’t much like the FBI stopping by to remind each of them personally that they’re on the watch list I can’t say.
Going back to the Anarchists of 18th Century France a common conceit of would-be revolutionaries everywhere is to assume that the mainstream populace is restive and cocked and ready to help them. Needing just a bold deed of violence to jolt them out of their inertia and into the streets.
They tend to be shocked and amazed to discover that 99.99+% of everybody everywhere is too busy just getting by to bother burning the city.
Interesting article in the Atlantic, speculating on how the dynamic may play out in the new Congress. Basic assumption of the author is that if the Republicans return a majority in the House, it will likely be smaller than the current majority and even more conservative, since the current members who support Ryan over Trump are the ones who are most vulnerable to defeat in their own districts.
No offense, but I’m not real sure what alternative you’re suggesting.
Also, I don’t think the conclusion is dependent on either of your two premises.
The way in which all strongly R districts are the same is simply that a shitload of historically R voters have to either switch to D down ballot, or stay home, in order to go D. Since most R voters of any sort, including those who can’t abide Trump, will likely continue to vote R down ticket, the alternative is for Trump’s presence at the top of the ticket to really, really depress GOP voting.
I’d like to believe it would happen to that extent, but that’s more of a fantasy than I can swallow. But tell ya what: if 3 or more R+10 PVI districts go blue in two weeks, I’ll add another $100 to that $500 that I’ll donate to charity if Texas gives its electoral votes to Hillary.
And on the flip side, all narrowly R districts are the same in that it doesn’t take much change to turn them blue. And there’s lots of them - 54 districts are in GOP hands that have a PVI of R+4 or less, counting GOP-held districts that lean D.
They don’t all have to move D-ward at the same pace, because there’s so freakin’ many of them. (Good thing, because you’re right, they won’t.)
I think we agree. My POV is that those historical R+3 districts will elect an R this time too.
I’m not buying into the pundits who argue that a 3 point shift in the Presidential vote towards Clinton presages a similar a 3 point shift in the congressional vote towards D. Which shift in turn would lead to a much reduced, and more likely more extreme, R caucus.
Instead I think the Clinton-ward drift for President moves the various congressional races only a smidgin D-ward, and only in those R districts that have the “right” demographics.
A rural or heavily deplorable district will vote for congress as R-ly as ever. A mostly soccer mom district would move more D-ward than the rural folks will. Whether that’s enough to return a D win in any particular soccer mom district is a different matter. A very few will; most won’t.
This is also assuming that turnout is at 2012 levels (for voters supporting either major party). Given the internacine fighting between a few outspoken Republican Congresspeople and Trump and especially the growing media narrative that Clinton will very likely win (aside from the whole “rigged” talking points), Republicans and Republican-leaning voters might not have as much incentive to make it to the polls. While it is still way too early to tell with early/absentee votes, there are already signs that this might be the case.
I’ve said all along that the presidential race will be decided on turnout. And there are and have been all along some historically-unprecedented wildcards on both sides that will both boost and retard turnout on each side. Time will tell which effect(s) prove predominant.
One risk I’d not foreseen was the idea of Trump vigilantes engaging in live real-time voter suppression in D districts. Since early in-person voting has started in many jurisdictions already, we ought to be getting reports soon of any such actual action. Though clearly the leverage from doing so spikes yuugely on Nov 8.
As somebody said recently in the I think “538 & Senate” thread, there will be no way to tease out the actual balance of factors from the final vote tallies. It’ll end up as a mess of “just so” stories backed up by plausible but not provably correct statistical arguments.
Ryan’s spokeswoman says he will indeed run for reelection as Speaker. Some hard-right folks in the House GOP Caucus aren’t exactly thrilled by that: http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/26/politics/paul-ryan-leadership-trump/index.html
And right on cue we see this:
There is another factor that hasn’t entirely solidified yet, and that’s Trump v Establishment Pubbies. He has already hinted at a making a direct and solid break, but lately has kinda toned it down. Still two weeks left for his pie-hole to open. If he comes out with a straight up declaration of war…“Vote Trump, but not for anybody who isn’t openly committed to me”…the trajectory of the shit will intersect the locus of the fan.
Remember, the Pubbies realigned the House districts with exquisite care, gerrymandering to ensure themselves a slight but real lead across the board, House-wise. It could well be that they did their job too well.
How many Trump voters would it take to upset the apple cart? And how crazy, how vindictive, is Trump?
The real threat to Pubbie domination of the House isn’t Dems, its Trump. Lately, it seems that he has made a deal with the leadership: press “voter fraud” as the reason he is losing, and stay away from the “betrayal!” theme. But that could change. Suddenly. At any time.
Well, that’s their tough luck. Who are they going to put up against him?