Crossposted on 43rd State Blues
Leading the way?
In Idaho, the three-ring Republican circus featuring Butch, Mike and Raul looks more like this:
Raul Labrador
"Let’s review the evidence," writes Joshua Green
in Business Week.
"Right-wing conservatives are furious at Boehner for agreeing to a deal raising taxes. Never mind that taxes were going up anyway—Boehner betrayed the Tea Party credo that saying no will eventually bring everybody else around. (It actually won’t.). So they decided to make an example of him by denying him the speakership."
Dan Popkey wrote about the Idaho fallout from this silliness, today:
After their highly publicized dustup over whether Rep. Raul Labrador was disloyal and compromised his effectiveness by refusing to vote for the leader of his party and Rep. Mike Simpson's pal, Speaker John Boehner, Idaho's only House members have met face-to-face.
"I have talked to him," Labrador told Popkey Thursday night after his town meeting on immigration at Meridian City Hall.
Did you mend fences? Pokey asked.
"I don't talk about private discussions," replied a chilly Labrador, keeping the lid on his simmer.
Mike Simpson
Popkey continues:
Simpson, meanwhile, was the only member of the four-man, all-GOP delegation to duck an interview on a story I'm working on for Monday about the prospects for immigration reform. ... My guess: After Simpson's blowup in the face of counsel to the contrary, he doesn't want to risk saying anything that might be seen as a knock on Labrador, whose expertise is immigration. Despite his snub of Boehner, Labrador got the Judiciary Committee assignments he sought, where he can play the delegation's most significant role on immigration.
Green gives more background on the attempt to oust Boehner as House Speaker. He says that the first step for them was finding an alternative. It’s a lousy job. Eric Cantor didn’t want it. Paul Ryan didn’t want it. But the Washington, DC Tea Party rebels decided not to let that fact get in the way of their plans.
Next step: Plotting. This one didn’t go too well either. On Wednesday night, an amused Republican staffer called me to report that Representatives Jim Jordan, Paul Gosar, Raul Labrador, and Steve Southerland were gathered at Bullfeathers, a Capitol Hill bar, openly plotting their coup. Not exactly the Roman Senate scheming to dispatch Caesar.
Final step: Pulling it off. Here’s where things went truly, hilariously awry. Any good coup depends on stealth. But on Thursday, an enterprising Politico photographer snapped Representative Tim Huelskamp sitting in open session reading from his iPad—not making this up—the entire roster of the plot against Boehner. Just so there was no mistaking that he was up to no good, the document was entitled “YOU WOULD BE FIRED IF THIS GOES OUT.” Not making that up either.
C.L. "Butch" Otter
Simpson remains aligned with the GOP's Main Street wing, which includes Gov. Butch Otter. Labrador has made no secret about the fact that he does not like Washington, DC. And he comes home every weekend to visit his young family. Rumours have long swirled that Labrador might challenge Otter for governor in 2014.
Referencing the evasive behavior from the Simpson camp, Popkey goes on to conjecture that:
... perhaps Simpson and the GOP establishment have decided raising the insurgent Labrador's profile by calling him out was a misstep.
So grab your popcorn, and get ready for whatever the next scene will be from this, The Greatest Show on Earth (or at least in the boonies of Idaho).