Just a month ago, anyone but Hillary was going to be the Democratic nominee. Bernie Sanders had the momentum. Joe Biden had peoples' hearts. She was consumed by an email scandal, Benghazi, or both. What people were missing was everything. Hillary maintained the edge in all institutional backing, money, and backing by the party faithful. For the general election, no one had made me a good argument for how or why a Republican nominee from this field would do better with Hispanics, African-Americans, women, the LGBT community, Asians, young people, or any sub-group of the population that Mitt Romney lost in 2012. Yes, people that watch FOX News think she might go to jail, or that she ordered the murder of the four Benghazi victims, or that she might be a witch. Those folks also think that President Obama was born in Kenya. He won. Twice. What those people think, in a very real way, does not matter, because that coalition of voters cannot on it's own win 270 electoral votes for President. They can, if Democrats don't vote, or some candidate comes along and can change the numbers amongst Democratic leaning groups. None of this Benghazi talk is going to matter with these groups. It certainly never was going to change the primary math, unless Clinton shot herself in the foot. Honestly though, as long as Trey Gowdy and Peter Roskam are the opposition coming after her on the stand, she was never going to shoot herself though. Jim Jordan is not nearly a skilled enough politician to throw someone off of her game who's been at this for three decades. In the end, the Republicans ability to defeat Hillary will depend on their ability to get a nominee who can challenge her for votes amongst groups that President Obama won. None of this nonsense is going to matter.
Then there's the whole Speaker's race, and the fact that ultimately all roads lead to Paul Ryan. They had to lead to Paul Ryan. There was nowhere else to go. There was never anyone else who could have consistently lead the House. Could Majority Leader McCarthy have received 218 votes? Perhaps he could have received a bare majority and just got there. His Speakership would have been short, and he would never have been in charge of the House. The business interests that control the GOP would never have allowed a Speaker who would have had to do destructive things to stay in charge. They needed someone that can actually move their agenda, and Ryan was the only option to do so. They need someone who can lead 230 or 240 members into votes, and Paul Ryan was the only person with both the "mainstream charisma" and the brutal, right-wing policy chops to do that. Yes, Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise technically out-ranked Ryan in House Leadership, and yes more conservative leaders were publicly lobbying for the job, but none of them could safely take the gavel and appease the money-interests in the Republican Party that had to be appeased here. So, Ryan was the only real possibility to bring stability to the House. Any other name that was mentioned would have struggled to be Speaker beyond next year.
In the end, most "political news" is mindless drivel that is driven by the 24 hour news cycle. We are back today where we were in April in the Democratic Presidential race, where Hillary Clinton is likely to be the nominee, and likely to win. The Speaker's gavel is going where it ideologically was always likely to go, to Paul Ryan. These things may have seemed up for debate, but you always have to ask yourself if that is because something real and concrete changed, or because of a bad news cycle. Politics generally revert towards the expected outcomes, which is why we saw Mitt Romney win the 2012 nomination, or why we eventually saw President Obama break away from John McCain. It's why we have wave election cycles, and it's why most incumbents win too. It's why most of what gets covered really isn't worth the time it gets. It's also why most of us will end up saying we aren't shocked next Spring.
No comments:
Post a Comment