The Long Knives Come Out

Roy Blunt has resigned as House minority whip.  There are some conservatives (Hugh Hewitt being one of them, as John Hinderaker points out) who want Paul Ryan to take over, but Eric Cantor is the likely choice.  Cantor has some detractors because he was wrong about the bailout and had a bad presentation at CPAC last year.  But the job of a whip isn’t to determine policy (though he’ll play a role in that), but rather to make sure that Republicans stick together on important issues, so neither of those really detracts from whether he can perform the job of minority whip.

John Hawkins, meanwhile, says that the entire GOP leadership should go up in smoke (third note).  He points out that “the best case for any of these guys could be made for John Boehner, who was a generally competent, conservative leader — but in the end, even he blew it on the bailout, which should be a career-ending call for a Republican leader.”  He is especially harsh on Mitch McConnell, a man who used to be solidly conservative but has spent too much time in Washington.

I think that Hawkins makes a good case for dumping McConnell:  he’s become exactly what is bad about the Republican party and under his stewardship, the Republicans in the Senate lost (at least) a half-dozen seats.  The problem, though, is who would take over?  Hawkins doesn’t mention any names and I haven’t heard of any either.  Maybe Tom Coburn or Sam Brownback, but I’m afraid that if McConnell were to go, he’d just get replaced by somebody like Orrin Hatch or Lamar Alexander rather than someone who could improve the situation.

As for Boehner, I would disagree with Hawkins.  I liked John Shadegg for the minority leader position, but I think Boehner has done a good job, especially in using procedural rules to keep the left from accomplishing what they wanted to.  The way that the House Republicans were able to take advantage of Democrats calling a recess while gasoline prices were $4 a gallon was also a very smart move, and Boehner was closely involved in it.  Boehner did reluctantly support the bailout, and that was a bad thing for Republicans and conservatives, but his hands were tied, given the President’s and Senate’s support.

As for the NRCC, Pete Sessions might be the next chairman, taking over for Tom Cole.  Roll Call has more, and notes that the DCCC outspent the NRCC $76.8 million to $24.2 million.  I don’t know much about the job that Cole did, but that’s an indictment all by itself.

One positive aspect of Liddy Dole losing her re-election bid is that she won’t be in charge of the NRSC anymore.  She deserves at least as much blame as McConnell for mishandling everything, given that the NRSC took sides in favor of bad incumbents against good primary contenders, like spending money to support Lincoln Chaffee in Rhode Island.  That money could have gone to a candidate who deserved it and who could have won.  The current chairman, John Ensign, didn’t even want the job and it shows.

In the end, we’ll see how serious Republicans are about cleaning up their act and winning seats, and the first step is to get serious with leadership positions.  The second step is to spend the next two years developing a coherent, effective set of goals to accomplish, similar to what Republicans did in 1993 and 1994.  They have spent the last two election cycles reeling, getting hit with scandal, and trying to defend or shuffle around poor policies (like amnesty) because their President or presidential candidate supported them.  We shall see if they actually do this or if they want to kiss another 3 or 4 Senate seats goodbye in 2010.