Steve Scalise Drops Out & Jim Jordan Gets McCarthy Endorsement As Austin Scott Enters The Race

From Sundance

The House GOP Speakers’ race is a system of conniving and positioning for a cushy committee assignment, indulgences from the lobbyist control apparatus, office locations and Machiavellian influence for the best junkets and largest leadership PAC deposits.  That’s the truth, the non-pretending truth about the system at work behind the GOPe blind vote. This internecine professionally republican stuff has nothing to do with principle centered leadership, and everything to do with self-indulgences and person affluence.

Steve Scalise drops out, leaving Jim Jordan as the last man standing that seemingly could unite the caucus.  Kevin McCarthy supports Jordan. Against this backdrop, Georgia Republican Austin Scott, the seven-term representative who  told CNN’s Manu Raju on Thursday that the GOP’s inability to elect a new speaker “makes us look like a bunch of idiots,” now enters the race.

If the caucus was likely to support Jordan, and if Scott was so concerned about them looking like idiots, then why would Scott enter the race to impede the consensus candidate?   That tells you what you need to know about Georgia’s Austin Scott.

VIA CNN: Austin Scott began his political career in the Georgia House of Representatives in 1997, where he served until being elected to Congress in 2011.  Scott, represents Georgia’s 8th Congressional District, serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Armed Services Committee and the House Agriculture Committee.

Georgia?  What concerns have previously been identified within the Georgia republican political circles?  Funny that.

WASHINGTON DC – Jim Jordan is poised to take a step toward the speaker’s gavel on Friday — even as he faces a last-minute challenger.

Republicans are meeting Friday afternoon to hear directly from the Ohio conservative and Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), who threw his hat into the ring just before the close-door meeting and added a new dimension to the topsy-turvy speaker’s race.

While there are enough Republicans opposed to — or wary of — a Jordan speakership to block him from getting the 217 necessary votes on the floor, he is projecting confidence that he will clear the much easier simple majority threshold for becoming the conference’s pick for speaker on Friday.

“I think I can unite the conference. I think I can go tell the country what we’re doing and why it matters,” he told reporters, adding that he feels “confident” heading into the secret ballot vote.

But whether Jordan can ultimately capture the speaker’s gavel remains far more uncertain, with a coalition of vulnerable front-liners and frustrated allies of Scalise and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy predicting that the Ohio Republican falls short.  (read more)

If Jordan doesn’t get the nod, possibly Representative Mike Johnson (R-La.) could.  However, regardless of who might take the gavel, the real issues within DC operate behind the Potemkin villages of congress.