When the Chinese intervened in the Korean War they hoped to sweep south with overwhelming numbers and drive the UN forces back. Simple plan, and the numbers were in their favor. Success seemed likely. However, from November 27 to December 13 fighting occurred at the Chosin Reservoir. The Chinese achieved their goal of forcing UN forces from northeast Korea. However, the UN forces were able to successfully withdraw, and in the process approximately one-third of the Chinese forces were casualties. While the Chinese victory was not pyrrhic, it did significantly weaken the third-phase offensive and set up the stalemate that followed.
What does a 1950 Korean War battle have to do with the special session? The “freedom caucus” lead a successful battle, dubbed the Mother’s Day Massacre, in the House leading to the special session. This scorched-earth tactic had the desired result of getting conservative items on the agenda for the special session. Hats off to the victors. However, the overall political situation isn’t any more favorable to the freedom caucus now than at the Mother’s Day Massacre. Although a new speaker needs to be elected for the session how likely is it that someone other than Straus is elected? He will receive all 55 democrat’s votes for speaker. With those in his back pocket he only needs 20 of the 95 republicans to side with him to hold on as speaker.
Right now, a campaign to replace Straus is ongoing. The Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin polling shows 29{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of republicans consider themselves tea-party. The freedom caucus numbers 11 (11.5{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}), suggesting freedom caucus support is in concentrated areas diluting statewide influence. They need to pick up 65 additional republican votes to unseat Straus. With the ill-will floating around after the Mother’s Day Massacre, this is a tall order.
Straus has drifted from center-right to center-left in his governance of the House. If Straus is to be replaced, a compromise candidate will need to be found for a negotiated replacement. The good of the party calls for such an action. This means neither the freedom caucus nor the moderate republicans will be happy this special session. However, with the political capital spent in the Mother’s Day Massacre the freedom caucus isn’t in a position to control the agenda. They showed they can fight and win the tough fight. Now, it’s decision time. Will they compromise and capitalize to some degree on their victory?
The vote for speaker will identify the repubs that should be primaried. The Texas delegation in DC is almost as feckless as the state representatives are. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are running congress in the same mold of Joe Strausss. Does anybody know what the heck the GOP stands for anymore?
I watched some show on Fox 26 last Sunday that had the three ‘right’ speakers in the form of Kathleen McKinley, Lance Roberts and Bill King. All three of them seemed to approve of Joe Struas’s style of torpedoing conservative initiatives.
In 1986 dems convinced Reagan to allow amnesty. About 5 years later municipalities all over the US put out policies like General Order 500-05 that squelched a lot of law enforcement against illegal immigration. Now we have 35 million illegals to deal with. And we see so called conservatives saying we don’t need a bathroom bill after the push by our mayor to force pastors to vet their sermons and assorted misfits to rage against nature to allow a free for all in public bathrooms. Can’t wait to see what develops if that prevails.
Thanks for the comment. You’re comments are similar to many I have heard elsewhere. This raises an interesting question. Let’s carry the thought out to completion. Whether or not Straus is replaced he will have several votes (leaving aside a negotiated replacement agreement) leading to mass primary challenges. How do you propose to win said primaries? Assuming the polling is accurate just shy of 1/3 of the electorate identifies as tea party. How do you convince another 1 of every 4 voters to vote to oust the incumbent?
Once you primary, especially if you primary en masse, you’ve crossed the Rubicon. The tea party doesn’t appear to have the broad based support for significant primary gains. That was before the massacre which fired up the tea party base but alienated a different segment of the electorate, along with the segment whose bills were killed.
Maybe you move the needle a bit to the right, which has value in and of itself, but the freedom caucus doesn’t take 50 total seats in the primaries. Short of 50 seats the democrats and Straus loyalists still control the chamber. Straus needs to go at this point. However, the hubris and lack of following thoughts through to completion displayed by the freedom caucus/tea party is equally disturbing. Debate the issues and move the needle to the right. We need that. Cross the Rubicon and the needle moves left because the votes aren’t there to get to the goal desired and it makes the tea party look like radicals.
Think carefully about what the end goal is and the ability to accomplish the goal. The whole point of the post was the current hubris has the potential to make the good fight all for naught. The (insert Braveheart imagry) “we’ll just primary them!” train of thought is in the same vein.
It would seem to me the Tea Party and Freedom Caucus are on pretty much the same page. What I don’t get is 95 repubs voting 100{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} for Straus. After this session I would think old Joe has gotten rather toxic, Pretty much like Fred Hill of 10 years ago.
I have a good friend that is in his second term as a rep and I wouldn’t vote for him if he continues to back Straus. To hear him tell it they are afraid of Straus and the retaliation he can wield for not backing him. Sounds like a bunch of cowards to me. After the special session it will be interesting to see all of the things that did not get done that we were so encouraged about prior to watching Joe shut it all down.
And it gets reinforced on the national level when you realize that repub leadership was absolutely lying to us about rejecting the Obama doctrines when they got exposed the very first time by passing not one but two continuing resolutions that funded every program them dems shoved down our throats. Keeping college loans as a federal function at 6.8{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} interest to fund Obama Care? really? They can’t get one thing right in something they have campaigned on for 8 years? The entire Texas delegation seems to be a bunch of back benchers. Kevin Brady as chairman of Ways and Means is no different than Charlie Wrangle. We’ve seen more debt from Boehner and Ryan than we would have gotten from Pelosi.
I see the frustration showing up as anger during the primaries and non interest in the elections if these incumbents are the nominees..