TITLE: Scalise Scrounges for Votes as G.O.P. Speaker Fight Drags On
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/us/politics/scalise-jordan-house-speaker.html
EXCERPT: A day after being narrowly nominated for speaker during a closed-door secret-ballot contest among House Republicans, Mr. Scalise, their No. 2 leader, remained far from the 217 votes needed to be elected on the House floor. Supporters of his challenger, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, said they were not giving up, citing the hard-right lawmaker’s popularity with the Republican base.
“That was the inside race; now the outside race starts,” Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a supporter of Mr. Jordan’s, said of the nomination on Wednesday. “And by at least four to one, Republicans who elect us prefer Jim Jordan over Steve Scalise.”
Mr. Massie suggested that some lawmakers who backed Mr. Scalise privately would not want to cross their party’s most ardent supporters, particularly after former President Donald J. Trump endorsed Mr. Jordan, a founder of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus. “You may have some people who privately voted for Scalise but publicly won’t do that,” Mr. Massie said.
Adding to the drama, some top Republicans were refraining from publicly rallying around Mr. Scalise, instead allowing the resistance to him in their ranks to fester. Mr. Jordan had yet to make a full-throated endorsement of Mr. Scalise despite indicating his support. And Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the ousted former speaker who has an icy relationship with Mr. Scalise, said the Louisiana Republican had overestimated his backing and might be unable to recover.
“It’s possible; it’s a big hill, though,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol as he entered a meeting with Mr. Scalise. “He had told a lot of people he was going to be at 150. He wasn’t there.”
TITLE: The Hitchhiker's Guide to why Scalise's speaker math may never work and the push to resurrect McCarthy
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hitchhikers-guide-why-scalises-speaker-math-may-never-work-push-resurrect-mccarthy
EXCERPT: Let’s consider the Scalise math. He commanded only 113 ballots in the GOP Conference yesterday. Had he come in at 112, the GOP conference would have needed to go to a second ballot.
But look at where Scalise’s support came from. He scored the votes of the three non-voting delegates to Congress who are part of the Republican Conference but can not vote for speaker on the floor: Dels. Amata Radewagen of American Samoa, James Moylan of Guam and Resident Commissioner Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon of Puerto Rico.
Fox is told that the fact that Scalise "won" because of the support of the three delegates infuriated some House Republicans. Those members are eligible to vote in the conference, but they lack a floor vote because they are not full members.
As it stands now, there's more opposition to Scalise's speakership than there was opposition to McCarthy. In essence, the House appears in a worse position than it was.
TITLE: Republican Chaos Has Conservative Media Fuming. It’s Their Fault It Happened.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/12/matt-gaetz-conservative-media-00121095
EXCERPT: Nothing epitomized the way that conservative hosts could champion fringe members willing to join their crusade at the expense of leadership than a June 2015 incident involving then-Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.). The issue seemed like procedural inside baseball but led to an uprising that showed how leadership could be overpowered.
Thirty-four Republicans had voted against the rule governing debate in the House on a trade bill. Lawmakers are expected to side with their party on rule votes, so this was the ultimate sin in the chamber. Meadows was one of those dissidents, and in punishment, he was stripped of his subcommittee chairmanship in the House Oversight Committee.
Instead of accepting his punishment, however, Meadows blitzed the talk radio airwaves to decry what one Fox host dubbed “very Tony Soprano-ish” tactics. Hosts were outraged, none more so than Levin.
During an epic rant, Levin dismissed Boehner as a “fool” and a “moron” and branded McCarthy, then the House majority leader, “the sleaziest of the bunch” — a man he wouldn’t even let “sell me a used car.” He accused Republican leaders of wanting to “destroy the conservative movement.” This was a call to action: Levin’s listeners needed to “go after” Boehner, McCarthy, and then-Majority Whip Steve Scalise.
It worked. Amid the conservative uproar, Meadows was reinstated to his committee post. And the following month, Meadows took steps to oust Boehner with the motion to vacate — the same procedural maneuver Gaetz would ultimately use to dethrone McCarthy. (Boehner eventually decided to resign rather than force his members to go through with such a vote.)
The whole episode underscored how conservative media portrayed politics: Far-right fighters like Meadows who scorned compromise and playing by the rules were heroes, and party leaders were traitorous, spineless villains. It became clear to ambitious young members that antagonizing leadership was the key to achieving political stardom.
From Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a cadre of conservative bomb throwers became some of the biggest names in politics, despite having very little traditional influence on Capitol Hill. They routinely took to the airwaves to slam their own leaders on everything from spending to abortion, and occasionally even managed to lead their party into a government shutdown a la the futile effort to defund Obamacare. And while this alienated their peers — Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) once quipped, “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you” — they didn’t need popularity on the Hill to amass power.
The message was clear: Demand political warfare, savage anyone who compromised with Democrats — no matter the situation or the consequences of not compromising — and reap the political benefits. It’s this culture that has shaped Gaetz and his allies.
The only surprise might be that conservative media personalities are so aghast at McCarthy’s ouster; perhaps it’s because they’ve been painfully aware of just how hard McCarthy worked during the nine months of his speakership to cater to right-wing priorities. In the end it didn’t matter.
But they only have themselves to blame. Conservative talk radio and cable hosts created the political ecosystem that precipitated McCarthy’s downfall and so long as they continue rewarding similar tactics, this incentive structure will plague whoever succeeds him.