The Columbia Bugle's Sunday Newsletter
November 7th-13th
What a mess. America’s elections, which have morphed from election day to election week to election month, are a total disaster and Republicans (AT BEST) have learned absolutely nothing from 2020. As things stand right now, it looks like Republicans have lost the Senate and are BARELY going to take the House. The fact that it is Sunday and we still do not have a clear picture of the outcome is a disgrace and should make every American’s blood boil.
That being said, this is the game and Republicans must learn how to play it. Assuming you will waltz back into power by doing nothing about Lib election shenanigans and running only on the failures of your opposition is a recipe for disaster. The face of the Regime may be a senile old vegetable, but the Regime is not.
Everyone has a hot take on the Midterms and blame is being thrown all over the place, but we’re going to marinate on this for a bit and wait to see all the votes counted before we lean into a theory and begin to list all those deserving of blame.
However, we will still focus the main part of this newsletter on the current battle over GOP Leadership in the House and the Senate. These dismal Midterm results are not what we were promised and the answer over whether GOP leadership should be changed is self evident. If these people in the GOP Leadership had any honor (they don’t), they’d resign on their own. They didn’t deliver, it’s time for a change, and it must happen right now.
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Table Of Contents
The Battle Over GOP Leadership
The House
Who should lead the GOP in the House after such an underwhelming performance by Republicans in the 2022 Midterms? Congressman Matt Gaetz is leading the charge in saying that it should not be Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. With a slim majority anticipated (but not guaranteed), it may actually be quite possible that McCarthy fails once again in his quest for the gavel.
Here is a brief overview of some of the developments this week and what Republican members of Congress are saying.
We will do a deeper dive soon on this battle over the Speakership once we find out whether Republicans have indeed taken the House. But as you can probably tell from our tweets we are no fans of McCarthy and would like to see him out of GOP Leadership entirely.
Congressman Matt Gaetz began with this tweet the morning after the election, signaling his support for Congressman Jim Jordan for Speaker.
Later that night, Tucker Carlson gave a monologue discussing the failures of GOP Leadership, which Congressman Matt Gaetz tweeted out his approval.
One obvious point, the people whose job it was to win, but did not win should go do something else now. We're speaking specifically of the Republican leadership of the House and the Senate and of the RNC. There's nothing personal. Some of them are no doubt nice people, but they took hundreds of millions of dollars to paint the map red and they didn't. It doesn't mean they're evil. It doesn't mean they should be jailed. It does mean they shouldn't be promoted. No one should ever be rewarded for failure. If there's a truly conservative principle in life, it's the principle of the meritocracy. You reward excellence. You do not reward mediocrity and when you do, things fall apart.
Russ Vought, the Former OMB Director under President Trump, tweeted out this excellent thread the next day.
Russ Vought joined Congressman Matt Gaetz on his show to discuss.
Here are some highlights.
Russ on War Room with Steve Bannon.
Congressman Bob Good also joined Congressman Matt Gaetz in calling for McCarthy to be challenged. Here he is on Laura Ingraham’s show this week.
Congressman Chip Roy criticized GOP Leadership in a piece in the Washington Examiner this week.
Congressman Chip Roy’s Op-Ed In The Washington Examiner: Leadership Is Not A Title. It's An Action
Meanwhile, the House “leadership” play, from top to bottom, was to offer an eleventh-hour, tepid, and weak “Commitment to America,” which few people knew about, much less cared about, and which said both everything and nothing. Perhaps well-intentioned to involve rank-and-file members through “task forces,” the leadership failed to produce the kind of concrete plan and bold strategy the moment required.
Still, these unforced errors need not define us. Now, we have an opportunity to paint with bright, bold colors and lead. It’s time.
We must only support leaders who trust us to do our jobs as elected members of Congress, are clear about where they wish to take us, and who have demonstrated the resolve to take us there.
We cannot afford to choose leaders who will not change the way of this town, who will not stand up for the people who sent us here to change it.
Leadership is not a title; it’s an action. It’s something demonstrated and followed.
But does McCarthy have the votes? He claims he does, but how the hell can he know that when we don’t even know if Republicans took the House or not, and what the margin is?
Despite what McCarthy tells the media, his chance at the Speakership is absolutely in jeopardy.
The House Freedom Caucus is not sold yet and is looking to delay a vote on leadership until they know exactly who is going to be joining them in Congress and whether they will even take the House.
If the margin is very narrow, it only takes a few America First members to block him, and as Russ Vought discussed in his thread above, there’s no hiding from this vote.
Who are candidates to replace McCarthy if he can not get the required number of votes? Congressman Jim Jordan is the most obvious name that is thrown around. There’s also a report out today that Congressman Andy Biggs is expected to challenge McCarthy.
Former House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs (R-AZ) is likely to run against House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to become the next speaker of the House if Republicans lock down a majority in the lower chamber, a member of the powerful conservative group confirmed on Sunday.
Congressman Jim Banks has announced a run for Majority Whip, perhaps he decides to shoot even higher.
The main takeaway from all of this is that confidence in McCarthy is collapsing and there is a huge opportunity for a real change for the better in GOP House Leadership. McCarthy has failed Republican voters over and over again. He’s not going to change. Which is why he must go.
The Senate
Over on the Senate side, Mitch McConnell is also facing a similar mutiny as Kevin McCarthy. Surprisingly, the Machiavellian Master of the Senate is actually getting more pushback than McCarthy.
In McConnell’s case, it is very unlikely that he is going to be Majority Leader even without a GOP Senate mutiny, unless some of these called races flip back to Republicans in Nevada or Arizona and Herschel Walker wins his runoff in Georgia.
But already there is a chorus of Republican Senators demanding that leadership elections be postponed.
From Politico:
Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) are circulating a letter pressing colleagues to sign onto a postponement of elections currently scheduled for Wednesday morning. The movement signals growing discontent within the Senate GOP over the increased likelihood the party remains in the minority next year and presents a new headache for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Senator Rick Scott is seen as the most likely and probably only challenger to Mitch McConnell. Here he is on with Maria Bartiromo this morning calling for a delay on voting for leadership and not ruling out a challenge to McConnell.
Republicans should have taken the Senate this year, but as Senator Josh Hawley correctly put it, don’t expect to win if you don’t run on anything.
We’ll have a lot more to say about these GOP Leadership Battles once the dust settles and we see what control in the House and the Senate looks like.
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