“Ill Suited For The Historical Moment”: Was John Boehner A Victim Of Circumstance Or An Incompetent Bumbler?
You can’t fire me, John Boehner just told House Republicans, because I quit!
Amid yet more talk about a coup by ultra-conservative Republicans looking to replace him with one of their own — talk that has emerged seemingly every few months since he became Speaker of the House after the 2010 election — Boehner has finally decided to pack it in. And he’s not even waiting until his term runs out; instead, he’ll retire from Congress next month, presumably to become a spectacularly well-remunerated lobbyist.
Even Boehner’s most stalwart allies would have trouble arguing that his tenure was anything other than a failure. But the question is, how much of it was Boehner’s fault? Was he in an impossible situation from which no speaker could have wrung much success, or was he just terrible at his job?
The answer, I’d submit, is both. Boehner’s circumstances made success somewhere between unlikely and impossible. But along the way, he proved himself incapable of changing that situation in any way, seeming to make the worst of every crisis and showdown.
Let’s look at Boehner’s accomplishments in his nearly five years as speaker. Well, there’s…um…hmm. Can you think of any?
Conservatives might say that by joining with Mitch McConnell in a strategy of total and complete opposition to this administration, he helped stop Barack Obama from doing some things Obama might otherwise have done. Or I suppose one might argue that he limited the damage members of his own party could do to the country. Despite threatening to shut down the government more times than you can count, there was only one actual shutdown, in 2013. And we didn’t default on our debt by not raising the debt ceiling, which would have been catastrophic.
But that’s not much of a record of success. Boehner can’t say that he achieved any conservative ideological goals. But he did hold 50-odd votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which is just about the opposite of a substantive achievement.
Granted, when your party doesn’t hold the White House, you aren’t going to be passing significant legislation to accomplish your own objectives. But you still might work with the other party to get some things done. That has happened in the past — legislative leaders have worked with a president of the other party to do big things like tax reform. But not anymore.
You also might mold your caucus into a unified force of strategic opposition, not just making the president’s life difficult but setting the stage for a successful wave of legislation the next time you do have control of both the legislative and executive branches. That’s what Nancy Pelosi succeeded in doing when George W. Bush was president, in advance of the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006. But Boehner couldn’t do that either — his speakership was spent fighting with members of his own party, and each successive crisis only made them look less and less serious.
From the beginning, Boehner may have been ill-suited to the historical moment. He was an old-school pol, the kind who favored hashing out deals over cigars and whiskey, but he was elevated to the speakership in a revolution fueled by anger, resentment, and distrust of party leaders. He spent his time as speaker trying constantly to mollify a group of unreasonable members for whom any compromise was betrayal, and the idea of strategically avoiding a confrontation today to put yourself in a better position tomorrow was just too sophisticated for them to wrap their heads around. They’re a group of bomb-throwers and lectern-pounders, who (like their mentor Ted Cruz) think that “standing up to Obama” is a substantive accomplishment in and of itself to be proud of.
That’s not to mention the fact that the rightward drift of the Republican Party, particularly in Boehner’s House, has made strategic action in the party’s long-term interest virtually impossible. The best example is immigration, where everyone including Boehner acknowledged that the party needed to pass comprehensive reform in order to prove to Hispanic voters that the GOP was not hostile to them. But it couldn’t happen because so many in Boehner’s caucus are ultra-conservative members who hail from conservative districts where they need only fear a challenge from the right. So they don’t want comprehensive reform, and neither do their constituents.
Could a more skilled speaker have found a way out of that conundrum? It’s hard to see how, other than the obvious way: by passing reform using a combination of votes from Democrats and sane Republicans. This was the option Boehner faced again and again on funding the government, and he only took it when things reached the point of crisis. Every time, observers wondered if it would lead to a revolt that would displace him as speaker, but his saving grace turned out to be that the job was so miserable that nobody else wanted it.
It’s still unclear how Boehner’s announcement will affect the current shutdown crisis we’re approaching, but since he no longer has to worry about his job, he may just bring it to a quick conclusion by throwing the conservatives some meaningless bone of a symbolic vote on Planned Parenthood, then putting a clean continuing resolution up to a vote (that seems to be the direction they’re moving). The CR would probably pass with Democratic support, and then doomsday could be avoided for a while, with Boehner’s replacement left to enact the next iteration of this absurd ritual once the CR runs out.
It would, in its way, be a fitting end to the Boehner speakership: a needless crisis driven by ultra-conservative members Boehner can’t control, finally resolved — but only temporarily — in a way that leads those members to call him a traitor and sets the stage for yet another crisis before long.
Can anyone blame him for wanting to get the hell out?
By: Paul Waldman, Senior Writer, The American Prospect; Contributor, The Plum Line Blog, The Washington Post, September 25, 2015
“Poisonous Intra-Party Politics”: John Boehner’s Resignation Won’t Save Republicans From Themselves
For all his flaws, House Speaker John Boehner, who announced on Friday that he will resign from Congress at the end of October, was badly served by a lot of people.
Boehner’s decision is due not to any ostensible scandal or illness but to cruel political mathematics: His conference has become so dysfunctional that when a Republican speaker resigns, the House becomes less, not more, chaotic and reckless. The circumstances that prefigured his resignation are thus a fitting metaphor for his entire speakership and for the state of the Republican Party as a whole. It would be to Boehner’s credit to do everything in his power in the next month to protect his successor from the same fate.
What makes Boehner’s decision surprising is that the forces that drove him to it are familiar enough that they’ve become mundane. Up against a deadline to complete a basic function of government—in this case, to fund it—Boehner found himself beset by conservative demands that he condition Congress’ obligation to help run the country on President Barack Obama’s capitulating to partisan demands. This time the demand was to defund Planned Parenthood. In the past it’s been to change immigration policy, slash social spending, and defund the Affordable Care Act. In each instance, Boehner was confronted with a terrible choice: provoke a crisis, like the 2013 government shutdown, or capitulate to Obama, and face repercussions from unruly conservative members, who were constantly threatening to depose him.
These episodes of brinkmanship always resolved themselves, sometimes in damaging ways. In addition to the shutdown, Boehner’s 2011 decision to ransom the statutory debt limit brought the country within hours of an economically devastating credit default, and precipitated an agreement to impose automatic, indiscriminate spending cuts that harm the government and the economy to this day. More recently, he placated his members by embroiling the House in a lawsuit against the president, which, if successful, would precipitate a constitutional crisis. But he always maintained his brittle grip on power. Either he no longer believes he can, or doesn’t want the hassle anymore.
By stepping down, but not for a month, Boehner has freed himself from the poisonous intraparty politics that made it all but impossible for him to govern, and left himself a brief opening in which to settle some accounts, before the next speaker is elected.
If the succession of power goes as it has in recent years, his deputy—Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California—will become speaker. A conservative dark horse, like Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, could mount a challenge. But any insurgent candidate will have to overcome the fact that the speakership, unlike the majority leadership and other high-ranking posts, is determined by the entire House. Democrats, who can not elect a speaker on their own, are ultimately likelier to assure a victory for McCarthy over the devil they don’t know.
But no matter who comes next, the question is whether they’ll immediately confront the same tawdry dynamic that ultimately felled Boehner, or whether Boehner takes it upon himself to bring some stability to the chamber.
If he takes the path of least resistance, the next speaker will have all the same problems Boehner had, minus his years of experience. That path would end with a brief continuation of government funding—just enough to hand the same political mess over to a new leadership team. It would leave the government no less vulnerable to a shutdown, or another debt limit crisis, or a lapse in highway funding, and the party no less vulnerable to bearing responsibility for a crisis in the middle of election season. Call it Boehner’s curse.
Boehner probably can’t end the vicious cycle that hobbled his speakership. But he could plausibly clear the deck for his successor for long enough that the big issues Republicans want to fight over can play out in the election, rather than in the throes of governance. He could place legislation on the floor that funds the government for a year, extends the debt limit through 2016, and replenishes the highway trust fund, and allow Democrats to supply most of the votes required to restore calm. If Boehner were determined to make the next speakership less volatile than his own, and to end his own speakership on a note of responsible stewardship, he almost certainly could. What remains to be seen is whether he has one last fight left in him.
By: Brian Beutler, Senior Editor, The New Republic; September 26, 2015
“Bye Bye Boehner”: The Speaker’s Exit Has The Potential To Cause Chaos On Capitol Hill
Friday morning, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced his resignation and rocked the political world. The embattled speaker will step down at the end of October. Boehner’s latest move was abrupt and unexpected. Until this morning’s announcement, Washington was still collectively basking in the afterglow of Pope Francis’s historic visit to our city. Now, the speaker’s impending exit has everyone wondering what happens next.
The most immediate matter on Congress’ agenda is the continued funding for the operations of the federal government. Current funding is due to expire at the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30. Congress has not passed the funding bills for fiscal year 2016, so it must take some type of action next week to avoid shutting the government down. According to the Washington Post, the speaker’s resignation has cleared the way for this to happen, and Congress will pass a short-term funding deal that would keep the government running.
Until this morning, some House Republicans were threatening to vote against continued funding for the government unless the necessary legislative package also included provisions to defund Planned Parenthood. The division within his own party could have left Boehner without the votes needed to pass even a temporary funding bill, but his resignation seems to have appeased the conservatives who opposed him. Rep. John Fleming, R-La., told the Post, “The commitment has been made that there will be no shutdown.”
While the initial crisis of a potential government shutdown will be averted, Congress still has much more to do before the end of the year. These matters will become more complicated with the new hole in the House’s Republican leadership. Although the member next in line for the speakership seems to be House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the Washington Post noted that many House Republicans “believe he lacks the political and tactical gravitas to be a force in the House,” adding “The resignation sets up a bruising leadership race that will represent a long-delayed open clash between conservative and establishment Republicans.”
The crucial matters that Congress must decide on before the end of the year include a long-term funding package for the remainder of fiscal year 2016 and legislation to raise the debt ceiling, which is expected to become necessary in late October or November. The potential for a contentious leadership race, which pits conservatives against the rest of Republican conference, could make reaching consensus on these remaining matters difficult. Unless House Republicans are able to decide on a new leadership slate quickly, the rest of the year could be ugly on Capitol Hill.
Long-term, the effects Boehner’s retirement could be more far reaching. The speaker may not have been beloved by Democrats or by some of the members of his own party, but he was a force in the House and he won more than he lost. He had one of the most difficult jobs in Washington, but he worked every day to bring the factions of his House majority together so that Congress could continue with the work of the people. Most of the time, he succeeded.
It remains to be seen whether any of those who will run to replace him will be able to do the same. Recent calls from members of his own party for his removal had damaged the speaker somewhat, but he was still the most powerful, effective and thoughtful member of his party’s leadership in the House. With a relatively weak bench lined up to succeed him, Boehner’s resignation has the potential to create chaos now and in the years to come.
By: Cary Gibson, Government Relations Consultant, Prime Policy Group; Thomas Jefferson Street Blog, U. S. News and World Report, September 25, 2015
“Outsiders Looking In”: Truly Off The Rails, It’s Just A Matter Of Time Before Trump, Fiorina And Carson Fade Away
I get the outsider schtick. America has seen it over the years, but rarely have the American people elected someone who is truly off the rails.
In this field of Republican candidates for president, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina are off the rails. Their current polling advantage is due to their outsider persona, no question, but none of them have, to use Richard Ben Cramer’s book title from the 1988 campaign, “What it Takes.”
Wendell Willkie ran as an outsider/insider business guy in 1940 against Franklin Roosevelt. He was an experienced, viable national figure, knowledgeable on the issues, but lost to FDR in his bid for a third term.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was hardly an outsider, though he had never held elective office before. He was an immensely popular general who had helped mastermind D-Day and was courted at times by both political parties.
Jimmy Carter was surely an outside Washington candidate. That did him enormous good in 1976, but he was still an accomplished governor, two term state senator and experienced politician.
Popular General Ulysses S. Grant and experienced government hands William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover were other presidents never to hold elective office, but few questioned their experience or qualifications.
In 2015, you have to ask yourself when examining the candidacies of Trump, Carson and Fiorina whether they are truly presidential. Do they have the temperament, experience, knowledge and understanding of “what it takes” to run for president and be president?
Trump is clearly number one in the off the rails category. Everything is an attack, everything is a show, and everything is about him and his outsized ego. There is no uplifting message of substance, no indication he understands the nation’s problems or is ready to offer any concrete plans to solve them. This is a soap opera on steroids, “Entertainment Tonight” that is rapidly ceasing to be entertaining. It is a candidacy that is no longer, if it ever was, meaningful. Trump has no where to go but down and with each passing day of his antics he drops in the public’s estimation.
Carson is totally out of his league. There is truly no reason for him to be a candidate. He does not understand the issues. He appears not to have read the Constitution on just who can be president or even how the government works. He may understand brain surgery, but he doesn’t have the slightest understanding of basic foreign or domestic policy. His participation in debates and as a candidate subjecting himself to scrutiny will doom any future campaign faster than the Washington Nationals got swept by the New York Mets.
As for Fiorina, she is no wunderkind, as her career at Hewlett-Packard can attest. In fact, most analysts are appalled at her performance. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld pointed out that during her tenure the value of HP fell 55 percent, 30,000 people were laid off, and she invested $25 billion in the dying Compaq computer company. She walked away having made $100 million after her failure and her firing. Not exactly a record to run on.
But, more important, she does not appear to have the leadership skills or the temperament to be a strong leader in the political world. She does study her briefing books, she does prepare for the debates more than some of the others, and she is not shy and not afraid to mix it up. But at the end of the day, she shows her true inexperience by stating that she will refuse to talk to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and shows very little understanding of issues, from Planned Parenthood to Iran.
So my guess is that even though these three have taken the lead in some of the polls they will fade quickly and then we will be back to more serious Republican candidates: Bush, Kasich, Christie, Rubio and Cruz. When voters get serious, Trump, Carson and Fiorina will be the outsiders, looking in, and wondering what hit them.
By: Peter Fenn, U. S. Newsa and World Report, September 25, 2015
“What Does The Orange Man Want?”: A Shutdown Is Almost Certain To Happen If Boehner Concludes It Will Be Good For Him Personally
As usual, it’s extremely useful to consult Stan Collender on how the fiscal end-game may work out this week or (if the can is kicked down the road) soon enough. His latest take discusses the roles that Ted Cruz, the House Freedom Caucus, and even House Democrats might play in making a government shutdown happen or not happen. But most interestingly, he notes there is one player in the saga who can most definitely cause a shutdown pretty much on his own if he so wishes: yes, that presumed shutdown opponent John Boehner:
This is the alternative that so far has gotten no attention, but there is a real possibility a government shutdown will be just what Boehner needs to survive as speaker and get a clean CR through the House.
The shutdown would appease the Freedom Caucus and defuse its effort to replace the speaker because Boehner would be doing what the caucus wants by refusing to bring a CR to the floor that maintains funds for Planned Parenthood. A few days or a week later when the appetite for a shutdown has changed, Boehner would be able to do what he’s done on several past budget-related bills: say they fought the good fight, that the fight will continue in other ways and get permission from the GOP caucus to work with Democrats to pass the CR.
A shutdown is almost certain to happen if Boehner concludes it will be good for him personally.
Don’t be shocked if that’s exactly how the deal goes down. Thinking of Boehner’s motives, I’m reminded of an ancient National Lampoon cartoon of a judge glaring angrily at an insolent-looking young man in the dock and saying: “You better show some respect, sonny. I had to kiss a lot of ass to get this job.” Boehner may not be as ready to give up his gavel as some observers think.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, September 24, 2015
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