"... why on earth would Ryan, who has presidential ambitions, agree to be speaker?"

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COMMENTS:
*  Moral of the Story: If you want to have a functional organization, don't empower a group of illogical fanatics. The "Freedom Caucus" would love to see our system collapse so that they can build something to their taste instead. Why on earth did the GOP empower them in the first place? Did the old-time Republicans think these people "care" about the GOP?
    *  When normal Republicans were instructed to reject EVERYTHING that Obama suggested, they should have been on alert. Being told to turn your brain off is never a good sign.
*  The two big problems hurting House Republicans: Stupidity and Ignorance
*  i would suggest the TWO biggest problems facing the republican party are corruption and then racism. forget about dishonesty and corruption as the democrats are just as corrupt so we will throw this one out. the racism is killing them. they pander to the racist old white men who used to make up a large percentage of their members. the racist old white guys still make up a percentage but it is shrinking and the republican party hasn't adjusted. the fact is the republican party must win more of a % of the latino and black vote moving forward to win the whitehouse.  yet, you see a racist old white guy, by the name of donald trump getting all the republican support and attention despite the fact that 'the donald' is such a loose cannon he is NOT ELECTABLE!
*  Even people who are completely innocent are victims of gossip and rumors for which no facts are needed. As a life long Democrat, I think the actions of Rep. Jones are reprehensible when the sole intent is to use innuendo and gossip to bring someone down. I can't fault McCarthy for not wanting to subject his family to such low tactics.  BTW, Rep. Jones, NC, is the extreme right wing member of Congress that spearheaded the drive to rename French fries Freedom Fries. Good God, what next from this deep thinker? Maybe someone ought to start an unfounded rumor or engage in gossip with regard to him.
*  The Tea Party members, who always invoke the Constitution, fail to recognize that the overall architecture of the Constitution depends on compromise. You can't send legislation through the House, Senate and Presidential levels without compromise.  The Tea party also doesn't understand that their view point is a distinct minority i the US. Most of us live in the cities and suburbs. Most of us want government to work and get stuff done.
*  The Tea Party, a.k.a., the "Freedom" Caucus, are the very tyrants in waiting they accuse sane Americans of being.
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The two big problems hurting House Republicans
By Jonathan Capehart, October 11, 2015

Discussing the chaos gripping the House Republican caucus, Joe Scarborough put his finger on one of the major problems facing House Republicans: a lack of strategic thinking. The former Republican congressman from Florida mused last week on his eponymous MSNBC morning show that when he was in Congress in the late 1990s, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich would be in his Capitol suite plotting the caucus’s next moves in the thrust-and-parry of governing with a Democrat in the White House.

Ain’t no such thing happening with the current GOP-led House.

The tea party took over the Republican Party in 2010 and elevated Rep. John Boehner (Ohio) to speaker in 2011. And from that moment on, he lived in political fear of the burn-this-mother-down members of his majority. Whatever strategy he hoped to employ, assuming he had one, was waylaid by their outsize ambitions and unrealistic expectations. Each successive election added to their ranks and their hubris.

With 247 members after the 2014 midterm elections, the Republican majority now wrecking the House is the largest since 1929. That tea party faction metastasized into the so-called Freedom Caucus, a rump group of about 40 far-right conservative members that spooked the speaker’s gavel out of Boehner’s hands and ensured it would never warm in House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s.

As much as Boehner and his leadership team are to blame for lacking strategic thinking, there’s another equally important factor at work in the chaos on Capitol Hill. Their members are unwilling to be led.

Part of the reason McCarthy was a terrible whip was that he could never corral the votes Boehner needed to pass legislation, which made a weak speaker inside the chamber plainly apparent to the rest of us watching outside. And things didn’t get any better once he was elevated to majority leader after the forced retirement of Eric Cantor. That McCarthy thought he could actually lead the majority as speaker was foolish.

The tea party class of 2010 was sent to Washington to block, cut and shut down the government. No amount of cajoling or pleading deterred them. None of the negative impacts of actually shutting down the government or playing chicken with the debt ceiling in 2011 humbled them. If anything, increasing their numbers in the two subsequent elections and retaking the Senate in 2014 have only convinced them that their way is best. Which brings me to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

Without question, the 2012 vice presidential nominee and current chairman of the powerful Ways and Means committee is speaker-of-the-House material. You might not like his fiscal ideas or entitlement reform plans, but at least he has them and can rationally debate them with Democrats and the White House. Ryan would be the strategic thinker the Republican House majority needs and with whom Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) could govern.

But Ryan would still have to deal with a House majority that does not want to be led. And ponder this. Ryan exhibited all the strategic thinking and leadership one would want in a speaker when he negotiated the compromise bipartisan budget deal with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in December 2013. How long before the folks pining for Ryan to be Speaker Ryan turn on him because of it?

Asked “if the House is governable” during a telephone interview with Rich Lowry of the National Review, McCarthy said, “I don’t know. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom.” Knowing that, why on earth would Ryan, who has presidential ambitions, agree to be speaker? Why would anyone want to be speaker under these conditions? No one in their right mind would.
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