Of the three aspiring tenors of the Republican Party, Kevin McCarthy, new Speaker of the House, was the pragmatist, the man more interested in building relationships and winning elections than thinking about laws and fueling the GOP’s visions of the future. And of the three who should have shouldered the Republican Party which in 2010 was being challenged by the Tea Party, by Sarah Palin and by a movement which in a way anticipated Trumpism, and witnessed the world honeymoon with Barack Obama, in the end he was the only one left.
Eric Cantor in 2014 lost the primaries beaten by an ultra-conservative; Paul Ryan ran with Romney in 2012 challenging Obama and Biden, a few years later he left the House refusing leadership roles.
If Cantor was the bulldog, Ryan the beautiful hope, McCarthy, 58 years old, born in Bakersfield in California and raised there on bread and politics in a friend’s small restaurant opened thanks to winning $5,000 in the lottery, was the one who got dirty hands and got up in the morning thinking about the next election to win. At the local, state or federal level.
This is how he built his consensus machine, supporting allies, someone uncomfortable, and internal rivals who are useful, however, for the cause that has always accompanied him: that of not remaining forever attached to the label of “minority leader”.
Already as a deputy in the California Assembly – he entered it in 2002 – he was tormented by the idea of not becoming the leader of the majority. He succeeded and remained there until he made the leap to Washington in 2007, taking over from his mentor, Bill Thomas, of whom he had been an assistant. Previously he had led the young Republicans.
In 2010 the “Young Guns” (as Cantor, McCarthy and Ryan were known) won the Midterms and also wrote a book together with the same title. In the era of Obama, young and reassuring, even the GOP was looking for profiles to oppose him, politically and in terms of image.
The mission failed and Trump’s nomination in 2016 is a shining example of this. But it certainly didn’t derail Kevin McCarthy’s race. Left “orphaned” by classmates for aspiring GOP leaders, in 2015 he had already attempted to rise to the role of Speaker when John Boehner of Ohio decided to leave office. He didn’t succeed due to the opposition of a group of deputies with different characteristics from the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus which made him suffer 15 elections before giving the green light.
So in the name of a pragmatism that became an ideology and engine of political action, for the second race he built a team of rivals over the years as leader of the opposition, approaching the pasionaria with the incendiary statements Marjorie Taylor Green and Jim Jordan, founder of that Freedom Caucus that until the end was opposed to Kevin the Californian.
To find a reference to the great conservatives of the past in McCarthy’s biography, one has to sift through archives and statements with little luck.
Conservatives accuse him of not being Reaganite enough, moderates of being too condescending to right-wing moods; the realists accuse him of wanting to dismantle the republican vision in foreign policy – defense of national interests and alliances – by undermining support for Ukraine to which he does not want to give weapons as if they were blank checks. McCarthy is a bit of all of this. He is a Trumpian without being one, because he got to politics before him and because he does not share the method of improvisation of Trumpism. He’s not part of how Kevin got to know politics.
Still, their bond has marked the GOP in recent years. When Trump was president, the harmony was fine, so much so that Donald called him “my Kevin”. The January 6 assault opened a crack in the relationship, which was quickly sealed. A few weeks after the extremist blitz, Kevin was on a plane to Mar-a-Lago to cash in on Donald’s support at Midterms in 2022. Again – as written by Fred Barnes, one of the sharpest conservative commentators and former deputy editor of the defunct Weekly Standard, the neocons’ forge of disclosure – Kevin was thinking about “how to win elections more often and more”. So in thirty days MaCarthy had performed an amazing pirouette going from Trump “who is responsible for January 6” to Trump “who is committed to strengthening the unity of the party and helping it win the 2022 elections”. A bet that ended badly given the outcome of the November Midterms.
What he will do as Speaker can be deduced from the promises and initiatives he has illustrated in recent months. Not all his sack flour, especially now that he owes the conquest of the “gavel” that belonged to Nancy Pelosi, to six ultra-conservative abstainers who dictated halter conditions to him and that every time the world asks for one thing, they could wake up demanding another .
Hard line on immigration, composition of commissions of inquiry, some itching for impeachment, perhaps against the secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. And then the economy, budget rigour, funds for national security. But this is the game that will open from Monday. Now Kevin McCarthy, the man who didn’t want to be a minority, has crowned his dream on his 15th attempt. With a lot of pragmatism.