November 17, 2006

The New House GOP Leadership Is Chosen

The Minority Leader will be John Boehner (R-OH) and the Minority Whip will be Roy Blunt (R-MO). They easily (really easily) beat back their more "movement" challengers (the rightie-blogs might have called 'em more conservative - but can you really be much further to the Right than Boehner and Blunt?). So the top jobs will go two people who held to of the top three party leadership positions before the election. The new #3 (conference chair) will be "Redneck" Adam Putnam (R-FL), one of the youngest members of the US House. And the conference vice-chair and conference secretary both hail from Texas - Kay Granger and John Carter. Oklahoma's Tom Cole will head their congressional campaign committee, and Rep. Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan won a race for House Republican Policy Committee chairman.

When it comes to the top 3 positions (the ones I know something about), the winners are exactly who I would have voted for if I happened to be the mean Republican in the US House (hard to imagine, but to the degree I can ...). Why? Simple - it's abundantly clear from the exit polls that the GOP's problem this year was with independents. And I find it very hard to imagine that running even further to the Right is an effective strategy for winning them back. Beyond that - it's not like most of these people were really why the Republicans were rejected at the polls. DeLay and Hastert are gone now - and of course no one in the conference has power over the White House (the Republicans' real problem). So, to me, sticking with some survivors from the old team makes sense.

Posted by armand at November 17, 2006 01:47 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics


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