smushed-up in our wheelwell, America's resurgent right rolls-on, retaining effective veto power over the Republican Party's choice of new leader in the US House as we all now contemplate wiser, far more palatable possibilities...
Darrell Issa always gave me high hopes with all his investigations- inquiries which never seem to result in nailing the bad guys to the wall. Isn't that a microcosm of today's weak-kneed Gee-Oh-Pee establishment? Lot of noise, but no effective challenge whatsoever?
Alas, we need a dragon-slayer in the Speaker's seat, and Rep. Issa seems to lack the charisma and ability to punch-it-into-the-endzone required at this point in history.
Trey Gowdy is probably the first one that came to mind for most of us,
but it's he's made it pretty clear he doesn't want the job.
Drafting him would be ill-advised providing he doesn't want to be there, and Rep. Gowdy would know better than us anyway, so best leave him be.
Jason Chaffetz is a real conservative, boasting a 82% Freedom Score.
But his primary point in a recent interview re. why he ought to be Speaker had him saying he would look best on TV. Apparently his mom and/or wife told him he's cute, but to me the elfin appearance seems cartoon-like and boyish
(if he's planning to just get-by on his looks).
So that's not a positive, and if something this shallow is all he's got to say about what he's do if handed the gavel... I dunno about this one. I watched a bit of him on Fox and left with no substantial positive impression- and Chaffetz was ready to back Paul Ryan up until about three days ago.
Unfortunately, Rep. Webster's CR Freedom Score doesn't quite match the rhetoric we're hearing from him lately, it's at a mediocre 64%. And he's not exactly an entertaining speaker- from what little I've heard, he seems dull, droning, and monotone. Webster could be a 2nd or 3rd choice for me, if need be- but haven't noticed any groundswell of support out there yet.
Jim Jordan and Justin Amash don't seem to be gathering any real steam, and a few other names have been tossed around.
Some people have been talking about drafting Newt Gingrich, who's record as Speaker in the 90s commands respect. I backed Newt vs Romney early in the 2012 GOP primary season, like him and think he's brilliant, and always enjoy listening to his spiel on TV interviews.
But many of Newt's old alliances are gone and he's probably a bit rusty. He also says weird things often enough to be unsettling -plays outside critic while still flirting with the GOPe- and supported McCarthy for Speaker just two weeks ago... I thought McCarthy was a joke the minute he opened his dopey trap, so I dunno if Gingrich is going to go-over with the right like he did in 2012... and he's never going to outlive that pic of him and Pelosi.
Which leaves us with Tennessee's Rep. Marsha Blackburn -with a rating of 72% at CR- perhaps barely acceptable there, but she's indeed a conservative who importantly comes across as professional and knows how to talk- a likable sort, one everybody seems to think can get the votes.On the most vital issues of the day, Blackburn usually gets it right: she lead the fight against Obama's illegal Executive Amnesty on the House floor last year -mirroring Ted Cruz's efforts in the Senate- and the American Conservative Union has all but endorsed her based on their rating model. She pulls a 92 out of a possible 100 from them in principled, consistent conservatism on House votes of 'the Boehner era'- not too shabby
(her first 7 years in Congress she scored a perfect '100' from them).
Rep Blackburn currently sits as vice chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee and boasts both a corporate business and entrepreneurial background. She led the fight against institution of a state income tax in the Tennessee state senate in 2002 and moved on to Capitol Hill by running on that victory... proto-TEA Party, if you will.
And although I usually abhor race or sex based calculations, I do like the idea of trying a woman Speaker, at least for the time being: not only a fresh face, Blackburn might work out great, and in the meantime the left will surely find it more cumbersome to attack a female in such a position- they can't just give her the full Palin treatment, which I don't think would even work anymore: people are far more skeptical of the MSM's PC-for-thee-but-not-for-me these days. Any subsequent 'war-on-woman' would expose the press as the sinister hacks they truly are... and just in time for the election.
If she could stand-up to the lawless Obama regime for the next 15 months, Blackburn could come to be a hero to conservatives while destroying the left's 'group victimhood' feminist model at the same time: here's a woman who earned what she's got, out to show all you self-pitying welfare queens how it's done... what, you gonna call her a Nazi now?
