| Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Hakeem Jeffries (NY 8) | 212 | 49.1% |
| Republican | Jim Jordan (OH 4) | 200 | 46.3% |
| Republican | Steve Scalise (LA 1) | 7 | 1.6% |
| Republican | Kevin McCarthy (CA 20) | 6 | 1.4% |
| Republican | Lee Zeldin | 3 | 0.7% |
| Republican | Tom Cole (OK 4) | 1 | 0.2% |
| Republican | Tom Emmer (MN 6) | 1 | 0.2% |
| Republican | Mike Garcia (CA 27) | 1 | 0.2% |
| Republican | Thomas Massie (KY 4) | 1 | 0.2% |
Note: official party nominees in bold.
Democrats do not look better by letting the Republicans flail. If this is going to be a repeat of the last speakership election, Democrats should intervene.
There is no constitutional requirement that the speaker of the house be a member of Congress. Democrats should nominate a strong apolitical candidate (perhaps a Medal of Honor recipient), and dare the Republicans to give them anything less than their whole-hearted support.
Hell, they should publish a list of the next 10 such candidates they will be nominating, inviting the public and media to compare Jim Jordan to a whole list of laudable alternatives.
Waiting for the Republicans to negotiate toward a position that will appease Matt Gaetz and his chucklefucks serves neither the nation's interests nor Democratic interests.
Bullshit. Why try to cover for their inability to govern? It's gonna suck, but if these people keep getting elected it will continue to suck for a long time. I'm all for a schism splitting off the radical right.
It's their house, and it's going to be a shitshow, but people voted for this. Maybe it'll make the party implode, or at least a few reconsider it next time out of embarrassment.
Bad take. We aren't covering for their inability to govern. We are exploiting their inability to govern by forcing them to accept a candidate they don't really want.
And if they aren't willing to accept that candidate, we keep comparing their horseshit speaker to the upstanding hero we could have had.
6 Republicans who don't want to reject a war hero either divide the party, or force it to back that reasonable candidate.
Instead, we're going to get someone an inch closer to Matt Gaetz. Fuck. That. Shit.
I get the impulse, but the difference between a democrat (Jeffries), and someone nominated by a democrat (MOH recipient/etc) to the GOP is minimal if not non-existent.
If you're talking about Republican politicians, I would agree. If you're talking about Republican voters, I strongly disagree. The reverence our current and former soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have for MoH recipients is stronger than the distrust we have for the major parties. I don't see Republican politicians being able to spin war heroes into political hacks.