House Republican drops out of race for Speaker already

Now that Kevin McCarthy has been ousted and high profile candidates Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan have failed to replace him, nine mostly lower profile House Republicans have all entered the race to become the next Speaker of the House. Wait, make that eight.

After House Republicans held their big meeting today to pitch their candidacies, House Republican Dan Meuser immediately announced to reporters that he was dropping out of the race. That’s right, this guy’s first speech of his candidacy apparently went so poorly, he immediately quit. He barely lasted the weekend before dropping out. But come to think of it, Meuser’s candidacy lasted longer than Steve Scalise’s did.

We used to measure short tenures in terms of Scaramuccis, after Anthony Scaramucci famously only lasted eleven days as White House Communications Director. But Scaramucci’s tenure is looking lengthy compared to just how short these Speaker of the House candidacies are. Perhaps we should be measuring things in terms of Meusers or Scalises.

In any case, there are now eight remaining candidates for Speaker of the House. Two of them, Tom Emmer and Byron Donalds, appear to have the most support lined up. So we won’t be surprised if everyone else drops out and one of these two guys ends up narrowly winning the nomination over the other, only to then enter into a difficult floor fight to become Speaker. In other words, last week all over again. We’re pretty sure there’s still a country these people are supposed to be running. Not that Republicans care about such things.