(See this comment below for local perspective: www.dailykos.com/...)
At first blush, you might think of Congressman & House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as your standard-issue gee-golly aloof/clueless interchangeable Republican Congressman. He’s not some cartoonishly terrible person in real life like many politicians, but it’s long past due to send this one out to pasture to hang out with Darrell Issa and friends.
What follows is (1) a sourced cheat-sheet of some of McCarthy’s greatest hits in his home state of California — the case against him — and (2) three proposals of how to push him on on his heels & go on the offensive.
But first in recent news… you should be aware that McCarthy is a true Profile in Courage and wants you to know that regarding the abortion legislation from our confusing friends in Alabama that…
“It goes further than I believe, yes,”
While not the strongest position, it’s a good a start as far as 2019 goes, but with a tepid response to Alabama’s test law against Roe vs Wade, as usual the little Bakersfield worm goes on to play it both ways and attempt to make everyone happy…
“I defend my pro-life position for my whole political career,” he said. “But in my whole political career, I also believed in rape, incest or life of the mother. There was exceptions.”
He’s clearly a bum/bullshitter, but in an otherwise devastating night for the CA GOP Congressional Delegation, McCarthy coasted to re-election in 2018. Have you ever heard of “Tatiana Matta”? Nobody else did either and McCarthy accordingly achieved a 63.7% vs 36.3% victory in a night when the winds were very much not at his party’s sails. Somehow this guy keeps sticking around but continues to cause damage to California and the good people of the CA-23.
McCarthy’s CA Highlight Reel
1) As a “Majority Leader” and “Minority Leader” McCarthy never protects his state
McCarthy regularly lets others shit on his own state and get away with it.
This is might one the most important politics-related reasons why McCarthy needs to go. There’s been a number of punitive policies and statements from the current Administration specifically targeting California and McCarthy never does much about it. For example, after a terrible series of wildfires, President Trump got on the horn and declared:
McCarthy responded in what will become a familiar McCarthy-esque fashion:
“I do not support withholding money for people that have had fires and damage,” he said. “California is getting the money.”
Again not the strongest position in support of his state after a ridiculous statement, but evidently the President forgot about everything and Federal $$$ kept flowing — McCarthy also wormed out as usual and resumed groveling:
The President’s message shows clear frustration about an important issue that has not been resolved — how we deal with addressing wildfires in California going forward so that more lives aren’t at risk. We are all frustrated with the lack of proper forest management that could mitigate the damage our communities [blah blah blah]
During the negotiations for that godawful, secretive, and corrupt-as-hell GOP tax bill McCarthy got rolled and let his state get hit with needlessly punitive reduced State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions. In an interview, McCarthy explained how this was about making the tax code more “fair” to other states:
You’ve got to look at the bill in the total part of it, it simplifies, it lowers, it makes it more competitive, so overall it’s a benefit […] they have a mismanaged government, they spend too much in California, they build a train to nowhere in the process. And what they do is they continue to raise their taxes where they have the highest tax rate, why? Because they make the argument, the Democrats do, that they can just make you write it off by the Federal Income tax. Well is it fair for one state to subsidize another? I think if you look at the total tax package [blah blah blah]
Probably everyone and their grandma makes this argument, but it’s worth making explicitly here: CALIFORNIA PAYS MORE INTO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THAN IT RECEIVES.
Don’t ever forget this about California:
- California ranks 42nd among the fifty states and the District of Columbia for the amount of federal per capita expenditure
- California receives $0.99 in federal expenditures per dollar of taxes paid, which is below the national average return for states of $1.22 per dollar
- California’s economy is just behind Germany, Japan, and China (US is no 1) in terms of output/size
- California is home to world-class (public) medical research universities, aerospace, high technology, and the farmlands of the Central Valley feed a good chunk of the country, not to mention the rest of the planet
California has to deal with far more people and larger problems than most other states and it is becoming prohibitively expensive yet still outperforms other states with “lower” state taxes and who receive more Federal services and money. With the money California does receive, it evidently does a pretty decent job of putting it to work.
2) He’s an across-the-board bullshitter
Even McCarthy’s origin story has a little bit of fuzz on it.
This isn’t particularly important on its own, but it is instructive. As a young man McCarthy was hard-up for cash (his family were working-class Democrats and his father was a firefighter who moved furniture on his days off) and McCarthy learned how to “flip” cars. The story (the details depend on the audience) goes one that night McCarthy bought a state lottery and won $5000 and took those winnings and invested in some stock (a discount fur company) and with the proceeds opened his very own deli at age 19:
“I opened my own deli, it was like Subway before Subway, even built the counter in my dad’s garage. And I did it for two years and I was pretty successful. I now had enough money that I could pay my whole way through college. … So I sold my business.”
Some dumb fibs about “Kevin O’s Delicatessen”:
- Subway absolutely existed in Bakersfield at the time
- The CA lottery didn’t start selling tickets until McCarthy was about 21
- His Aunt/Uncle owned a yogurt shop and a food reviewer at the time wrote that Kevin O’s “is located in a corner of McCarthy’s Yogurt. … The full official name is Kevin O’s Delicatessen but that’s an exaggeration. The deli is only a counter and refrigerator in McCarthy’s dining room”
Seems to like to tell the story to make a point:
“I tell the story so people realize I don’t give up on things. I tell the story so they realize I am willing to take a risk. So they will look at you, not just, ‘Oh, you are a member of Congress.’ ”
McCarthy’s habit of little harmless fibs adds up over time and has become a bit of a habit for him. For instance, there was a very bizarre incident from June 2016 involving an eccentric Congressman named Dana Rohrbacher. (Rohrbacher in the 80s joined up with mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan’s and shot at Soviet Union military units occupying the country before entering Congress representing Orange County after the Reagan Revolution. After the fall of the Soviet Union, however, Rohrbacher became rather close to various Russian circles for a member of Congress overseeing Russia policy. He was even allegedly warned by the FBI and members of the then-functioning House Intelligence Committee that Russian security services viewed him as a propaganda/intelligence source and had even designated a special codename for him. Rohrbacher was removed from his position by colleagues and to this day maintains for instance that the Russian GRU team did not hack the DNC. He’s a crank who was soundly defeated in 2018 and then hightailed it to Maine. Rohrbacher is reportedly considering opening a consulting with his former aide and lobbyist Paul Behrends.)
McCarthy and several GOP Congresspeople were having a closed-doors chat and McCarthy made an interesting comment about Rohrbacher being “paid” by Putin:
McCarthy: The Russians hacked the DNC and got the opp research that they had on Trump.
McCarthy: laughs
Ryan: The Russian’s hacked the DNC…
McHenry: …to get oppo…
Ryan: …on Trump and like delivered it to…to who?
[Unintelligible]
McCarthy: There’s…there’s two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump…[laughter]…swear to God.
Ryan: This is an off the record…[laughter]…NO LEAKS…[laughter]…alright?!
Ryan: This is how we know we’re a real family here.
Scalise: That’s how you know that we’re tight.
Ryan: What’s said in the family stays in the family.
Some reporters asked Ryan and McCarthy about the exchange and their denials went through three distinct stages:
Stage I: Blanket denials
Asked for comment, both men denied it ever happened:
Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan, said: “That never happened,
Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy, said: “The idea that McCarthy would assert this is absurd and false.”
Stage II: Attack the transcript
After the transcript was produced, Ryan and McCarthy maintained the transcript was fake or inauthentic.
Stage III: Laugh it off
After the reporters revealed they had heard an audio recording, McCarthy’s team then went with:
“This was a failed attempt at humor,” Sparks said.
(McCarthy naturally later wormed out and apologized to Rohrbacher.)
There is a case McCarthy and his lackeys could make that it is important to have cordial relationships with a White House seemingly hell-bent on punishing California. But the notion that this inept and powerless goofball and has his team have the “ear” or can meaningfully influence a mad-king President is nonsense.
Not to mention, even as Majority Leader he could not fend off the SALT deductions attack on California. He is not an effective protector of his state from a hyper-partisan White House and Congress and also has not exactly been much been a paragon of integrity either. For comparison, imagine an Alabama Congressman — an “real” Alabama Congressman would NEVER let happen to Alabama what happened to California under McCarthy’s watch.
Bottom line: This bullshitter needs to go and it would be an excellent humiliation to the GOP Leadership on the level of David Brat beating Eric Cantor.
What follows are three tracks that can finally take down McCarthy.
Three Proposals
- Let’s start a war between Liz Cheney & McCarthy
After losing their majority in 2018, McCarthy was elected House Minority Leader and Liz Cheney from Wyoming endorsed McCarthy as someone who led the Congress “in unmatched historic productivity — including the historic tax cuts and jobs act […]” Liz later added “build the wall!”
Does anyone really think that Liz Cheney is somehow NOT a cynical power-hungry climber willing to don whatever populist robes are in fashion and stab colleagues in the back to move up the ranks?
One need only look at what she did to her own sister in her abortive Senate run in 2013 to understand who Liz Cheney can be when something stands between her and power. Liz Cheney recently clashed with McCarthy by refusing to vote for a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and other issues in part because it the bill was allegedly too “soft” on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. It’s unclear if Cheney will run for Senate but as long as she is in the House she will outshine McCarthy. McCarthy’s anxiety about this threat should be agitated as often as possible.
Liz Cheney is an ambitious person and every effort should be made to stoke division, mischief, and uncertainty between the Liz Cheney camp and the wimpier and weakened McCarthy circles. An effective of line of attack could be to emphasize McCarthy’s weakness and equivocation and simultaneously sow fear with McCarthy and allies about “populist” barbarians at the gates — McCarthy’s wing is likely already convinced at this point that hardliners and lunatics usually win these fights in the GOP House.
2) Actually make Bakersfield better
While keeping McCarthy distracted and worried about being knifed by Liz Cheney, there must also be a concerted effort to do actually something truly useful and important: identify how to powerfully address the profound problems in Bakersfield. Bakersfield is McCarthy’s hometown and has had one of the largest increases in concentrated poverty since 2010. The percentage of the Bakersfield metro area’s poor population living in high poverty neighbors jumped from about 16% to 32%. Many people are poor and many people are hurting in Bakersfield these days — the currently booming stock-market does not mean anything to them. With poverty comes typical attendant issues like crime, unemployment, desolate communities, low education attainment. Engaging people where they are on those issues could serve as a mechanism for fruitful (and practical) political organizing. The agony in Bakersfield and towns like it across California is of course not McCarthy’s fault but he has not delivered for his constituents and his party’s shitty policies and their bad ideas can really hurt those people. If their needs can be addressed and they’re able to vote they represent the fastest path forward.
3) Play Dirty
This is the perhaps least productive and empowering option, but in a low-attention span media ecosystem it could prove decisive in combination with other strategies. One of the reasons McCarthy became Majority Leader and not Speaker was because of a woman named Renee Ellmers:
Ellmers worked as an ICU nurse and she ran for Congress and won in the 2010 tidal wave beating a 7-term incumbent. Ellmers started her career as a Tea Party darling with a very TV-friendly story as an aw-shucks nurse who opposed abortion. (An interesting note on Ellmers in light of recent events in Alabama is that she caught a lot of flack for opposing the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” which would ban abortions after 20 weeks gestation. Ellmers’ problem was that the bill mandated that if a woman had to formally file a police report in order to obtain a rape or incest exception for an abortion. She caught holy hell for this stance and was shocked by the freak-out by pro-life groups, later writing “I am appalled by the abhorrent and childish behaviors from some of the leaders of the outside groups.”)
So why Ellmers? Long story short, there were allegations of hanky-panky between McCarthy and Ellmers and the rumors got to the point where Congressman Walter Jones of North Carloina wrote a letter that read in part:
With all the voter distrust of Washington felt around the country, I am asking that any candidate for Speaker of the House, majority leader, and majority whip withdraw himself from the leadership election if there are any misdeeds he has committed since joining Congress that will embarrass himself, the Republican Conference and the House of Representatives if they become public
Naturally this sort of scandalous stuff is indeed a sanctimonious/bad-faith line of attack, but that kind of political behavior is really all we see from the other team these days, anyway. McCarthy is a bullshitter and can in theory direct a ton of money in support of a campaign — this incident is a very touchy subject for McCarthy and his allies and could possibly be of use to throw them off their game when the time comes.
Ellmers, who no longer is in Congress it should be noted, had to deal with a lunatic challenger named Kay Daly who had a pretty devastating but effective line of attack:
I’m not running against Renee because she’s been unfaithful to her husband; I’m running against Renee because she’s been unfaithful to her constituents and to the Republican Party platform,
This was also Ms. Daly’s ad against “RHINO” Ellmers:
The GOP has cultivated and embraced these cranks for years and now they’re touching the fire, so perhaps there’s a few in Bakersfield that could cause headaches for McCarthy.
Not trying to be too Machiavellian with all this, but hopefully with the threats this country and especially California face it’s clear that it’s time to get serious about winning tough races. It’s replace bullshitters like McCarthy with competent, high-integrity people who can do a better job for the people in their districts.
As a “Majority Leader” and “Minority Leader” McCarthy never protects his state
He’s an across-the-board bullshitter
Three Proposals
