comment: >
  
  I'd say it's fundamentally different. The bomb-throwers in the House are in absolutely no risk of being primaried or losing a general election. They're in safe deep-red districts.
  Machin and Sinema are among the most vulnerable Democrats in the Senate.
context: What is happening in the House is a complete shitshow. I have no idea what the endgame is. Maybe McCarthy has to withdraw and the GOP has to nominate someone else. 
  McCarthy just lost vote No. 4. Here comes No. 5.
  Edit: Here comes Vote No. 6.
  Edit: Vote No. 6 will fail. No. 7 or adjournment until tomorrow?
  Edit: Adjourned until 8 PM ET tonight.
  Edit: CNN reports McCarthy doesn’t think vote tonight would be “productive”; “No deal yet.”
  Edit: House votes to adjourn for tonight. They will reconvene at 12 noon ET tomorrow.
  Edit: Day 3 of this circus. Send in the clowns. Don’t bother. They’re here.
  Edit: Boebert is hinting she may nominate Trump for Speaker, per Newsweek article.
  Edit: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a new result. Here comes Vote No. 7.
  Edit: Here comes No. 8. Will it have the same result as the previous 7? That’s what I’m expecting.
  Edit: Number 9. Number 9. Number 9. Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
  Edit: The Bo Derek vote for No. 10.
  Edit: McCarthy on his way to Defeat No. 11.
  Edit: McCarthy goes down for the 11th time, sort of like a hooker on a Friday night. House now voting whether or not to adjourn.
  Edit: Adjourned until Noon ET tomorrow for another episode of this shitshow. >
  
  The Freedom Caucus hates Kevin McCarthy and wants to humiliate him. That's ultimately the reason this is happening. 
  It probably won't stop until McCarthy steps down or Trump forces the 20 dissenters to give in (he has endorsed McCarthy and reiterated his support earlier today.) >
  
  Why does the Freedom caucus hate McCarthy so much? >
  
  They want some pretty extensive changes to the House rules that McCarthy isn't interested in implementing. They also feel that McCarthy has promoted moderates over more extreme right wing candidates in primaries and they want him to commit to stopping. >
  
  They want more of the candidates that lost them the mid-terms? >
  
  They aren't interested in maintaining political power the "traditional" way. >
  
  Or maybe by more "traditional" ways if you go back far enough. >
  
  Getting so conservative you bring back feudalism. >
  
  Don’t worry, if we just keep getting more conservative through the medieval ages; we  can eventually end up going all the way back to Greco Roman democracy! >
  
  
  All 212 Democrats voted for their own leader, Jeffries, but six Republicans would have to cross party lines for Jeffries to win the Speaker's position. That appears very unlikely to happen.
  
  Not necessarily. In order to win the Speakership the person needs to get a majority of members voting, not of all members. So if 12 Republicans abstain from voting and all the Democrats remain united then Jeffries would win. I don't think there's any chance this will happen, but I wanted to point out that it's technically possible. >
  
  
  So if 12 Republicans abstain from voting and all the Democrats
  
  I'm glad VVilly pointed this out. I have asking myself the same question for two days. I don't think it is terribly underhanded to make a deal with 12 freshmen Republicans to vote present in exchange for choice committee appointments.
  What a disaster the Republican party is right now. >
  
  No one in the GOP is going to do that.  They would be pariahs to their party and be primaried in 2024.  
  The best scenario for the Dems would be them agreeing with a handful of moderate GOP members to vote for someone in the GOP to the left of McCarthy.  Someone who would agree to not do some of the dumber grandstanding like voting for Biden's impeachment or something. >
  
  
  They would be pariahs to their party and be primaried in 2024.
  
  I wonder if any R reps are close to retirement and wouldn't care.  Or maybe someone would promise them a sweet gig in the private sector, like Paul Ryan going to Fox.  The old-boys-network may be working hard to wipe out MAGA. >
  
  I don't see it.  Most people don't retire from this job unless they're literally drooling on themselves.  Most of these guys are not Paul Ryan and are not going to get the status and money in the private sector that they get in Congress. >
  
  Eh, I think it's more that most everybody who had principles and would be willing to do it voted to impeach Trump after Jan 6 and got ejected from the party and congress. >
  
  Freedom Caucus will try to leverage as much out of McCarthy as possible. He has no real counter leverage, so it becomes "how shamelessly will this group hurt norms for their gains"- So how shamelessly will the Freedom Caucus flaunt disrupting norms for gains is the answer. >
  
  McCarthy's counter leverage is letting this play out in the media/news.  As the longer this drags/plays out the worse it looks in the eyes of the public. >
  
  And that helps McCarthy how exactly? >
  
  He can use it to pressure them into voting for him. >
  
  So far the opposite is happening. >
  
  Didn't say it would work. >
  
  Honestly, no one. Speaker of the House is a chamber-wide vote among all members. The Republicans are the majority, but they're so broken and dysfunctional that they can't even come together to use that majority power to elect a Speaker.
  They've elected and enabled bomb-throwers, and so they have bomb-throwers, not statesmen. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. >
  
  it's basically the same thing that Simena and Manchin have been doing in the Senate for years. Granted, by themselves, they can't grind the Senate to a halt like the Freedom Caucus has for the House, but it's similar in that they can demand huge concessions from the party they're supposedly a part of.
  When you're in the minority, it's easy to vote for your leader because you know there's nothing to gain and everything to lose by not presenting a united front
  But when you're in the majority and you get a taste of what it's like to be the spoiler, then things start going wild.
  I predict even if McCarthy gets his gavel, there'll be so many defectors that they can't get anything done, or he has to give away so much that the rest of his caucus won't agree to the terms. Instead of Manchin and Simena, McCarthy is going to have a room full of 200 spoilers ...