It’s said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
That makes it a very smart thing for House Republicans to adjourn until tomorrow after failing to elect a Speaker on three different ballots. Especially since wannabe Kevin McCarthy actually lost ground on the third ballot. Nineteen members of his caucus voted against him on the first two ballots and 20 voted that way on the third ballot.
One of McCarthy’s problems is that he seems to want it too badly. I think he lost a lot of respect when after criticizing Donald Trump for his role in the January 6th, 2021, insurrection, he went to Mar-a-Lago just a few weeks later and affixed his puckered lips to Trump’s massive buttocks.
Only streaming video could have made it worse.
At any rate, McCarthy has spent most of the last two years planning to become Speaker and he expected that a red wave would give him a solid majority in the House. Of course that would have meant he didn’t have to have the votes of the looniest members of get to 218 votes and a majority.
Unfortunately, the wave never materialized and the GOP wound up with a 222-212 majority, meaning the loss of five votes would prevent McCarthy from becoming Speaker.
So McCarthy had to line up votes from most of the lunatics in his caucus, like QAnon aficionado Marjorie Taylor Greene. She wound up being a faithful vote on all three ballots today, but too many of the other loons have said they’ll never vote for him.
What is apparent is that McCarthy has two possible outcomes now. The more likely is that he won’t be Speaker, while the other possibility is that he’ll have to make so many deals for votes that he’ll be an extremely weak Speaker.
Either way, the MAGA crowd wins and America loses.