Cruz to House Conservatives: Oppose Boehner

[brooklynite]

Source: National Review

On a Thursday conference call, a group of House conservatives consulted with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas about how to respond to the leadership’s fiscal strategy. Sources who were on the call say Cruz strongly advised them to oppose it, and hours later, Speaker John Boehner’s plan fizzled.

...snip...

The private call came together after Boehner unveiled his strategy at a Republican conference meeting earlier this week. Boehner’s plan — to focus on a debt-limit package, rather than a drawn-out CR battle — made many conservatives uneasy. As they mulled a response, they reached out to Cruz.

On the call, Cruz told them that Boehner was making a mistake, and urged his friends to fight until the end on the CR. The group agreed, and they complained that Boehner’s shift to the debt limit was a diversion. Senator Mike Lee of Utah joined Cruz on the call, and both senators said they’d stand with House conservatives as they opposed the leadership.

By the call’s end, there was a consensus: until the CR talks are complete, Republicans should whip “no” on Boehner’s debt-limit plan, as a way of preventing the leadership from directing the strategy. And that’s exactly what happened late Thursday afternoon: GOP whip Kevin McCarthy worked the floor, but couldn’t find the votes for Boehner’s debt-limit plan. After McCarthy reported back about the Cruz-inspired uprising, the leadership shelved it.

Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/359717/cruz-house-conservatives-oppose-boehner-robert-costa

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If Boehner was smart, he'd realize he's really lost control of the House and he'd try to cut a deal with Pelosi to forge a center-right/center-left coalition to run the things until the end of his term in 2014.....if Boehner was smart.

[Peacetrain]

1. This is getting good

[Blue Owl]

2. Ted Cruz: Now What?

JFC this guy is a tool...

[secondvariety]

3. Americans to Cruz:

Shaddup.

[HooptieWagon]

4. If Boner cuts a deal with Pelosi to form a center-right coalition....

...he'll lose his seat. The teahadists will primary him.

[Berlin Expat]

6. I believe he's already

facing a Teahadi primary challenge.

If Boehner was smart, he'd do away with the Hastert Rule, reach out to Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats and form a coalition to get things done.

The Teahadis - in and out of Congress - would shriek to high heaven, but they wouldn't have the votes in the House to topple Boehner from the Speakership, provided that he swung a deal with the Democrats to vote for him.

Such a move would, in effect, marginalize and neutralize the Tea Party faction in the House.

[Richardo]

7. You're exactly correct

[HooptieWagon]

13. Why would the Dems vote for him as SOTH?

They might control the House then. And IIRC, Boner already said he was going to give up Chairmanship at end of term. IMO, there's nothing the Dems can offer him to get his cooperation on a coalition, and he's desparate to hang on to his seat. He's simply trying to keep the crazies at bay and ride it out. Dems can't help him there.

[Berlin Expat]

14. I was

referring to the immediate term - from now until the mid-term elections.

It's simply a move to create a functional coalition that can get things done, and most importantly, neutralize the Tea Party crazies in the House.

You're right, that Boehner said he's giving up the Speakership at the end of this term, and perhaps he is just trying to ride out the storm on the right.

[HooptieWagon]

17. Any cooperation with Dems, and he's doomed...

...in his primary. He does want to hang on to his seat. The only way he'd cooperate with Dems to get things done is if he was retiring at end of this term. No indication thats the case. There's nothing the Dems can offer in a "deal" that can help hang on to his seat. Hell, if anything Dems should be helping primary him...a teabagger is going to be easier to beat than an incumbent establishment GOP candidate.

[AlinPA]

16. The crazies control him. He is a helpless teabagger follower.

[RiverNoord]

15. Ditto

There are times in a person's life when he or she must act with honor, not pure self-interest, in order to do what that person considers a duty or to prevent harm to others. This is the essential foundation of morality.

Tea partiers frequently employ terms such as 'values' and 'morals' in order to con people into supporting their remarkably amoral positions. I wonder if someone like Boehner comprehends the sacrifices sometimes necessary in order to act with honor in a situation like this.

I doubt it - and it's not because he's not smart.

[totodeinhere]

22. I doubt if Boehner would agree to work with Pelosi. Remember that he is a far right winger himself.

He may look moderate compared to some of the Tea Party crazies but but any objective measure he is an ulta-conservative.

[totodeinhere]

21. Before that he will lose his speakership. HuffPost is running an article right now

claiming that Cruz could even become the speaker himself.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/27/speaker-ted-cruz_n_4004899.html

[HooptieWagon]

24. How does SENATOR Cruz become Speaker of the House?

Thats ridiculous. Boner will be Speaker until the new Congress is sworn in Jan 2015. After that, he won't since he said he won't be Speaker again. He may not even keep his seat.

[totodeinhere]

27. Did you read the article? The speaker doesn't have to be a sitting member of

the House.

[jessie04]

5. This republican civil war has been inevitable for a while.

Boehner has been dodging this and his time is up............I almost feel sorry for him...almost.

We will see what kind of man he is.

[bluesbassman]

12. We already know what kind of man he is, what's going to be interesting...

is seeing what lengths he'll go to in order to save his own skin.

The problem, as always with these assholes, is that it's the American people who suffer. I am sick to death of a radical fringe of forty odd teabums messing with the operation of government.

[AlinPA]

18. He no different than any of the other crazy teabaggers. They all sound the same to me.

[Cali_Democrat]

8. Cruz is now the House Speaker. n/t

[gulliver]

9. Yup, the Tea Party gave Boehner a big FU

He should give it right back.

[marble falls]

10. So its going to be war, eh? The drunken orange guy versus the creepy kid in jr high school!

[mindwalker_i]

11. Uh oh, Cruz stole the Boehner and ran away with it

Send Viagra to the House, pronto!

[hollowdweller]

19. I half feel sorry for Boehner

I think he's right wing, but I actually think he would have liked to have got some things done and maybe been remembered fondly in history.

At this point will just be remembered as somebody trying to herd cats.

The country club and rich people in the party needed the working class vote to get a majority so they used a bunch of bullshit and they ate it hook line and sinker. Now the crazy true believers have taken over the party!

They created Frankenstein starting with talk radio and how they acted when Clinton won and now it's caught fire to where they can't do anything for the grassroots crazies.

They've tried to sort of push the evangelicals to the back and were somewhat successful but now the truly crazy pushing the party and nothing Boehner can do.

[mindwalker_i]

20. +1000 I think you're spot on

The only other thing is that (hopefully) republicans are a dyning breed, as they run out of old, white men, and that seems to be forcing them to be more and more crazy.

[blkmusclmachine]

23. Hey, Calgary Cruz...

Have you renounced your socialistic, health-care loving Canadian citizenship yet,

and are you still on the dole for US tax-payer supported free DC healthcare ?!?!

[Loudly]

26. I think Cruz stated that he has chosen not to be covered under the federal employee plan.

His wife works for Goldman Sachs, and they've got a rolls royce plan.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. The idea of holding the debt limit hostage is shelved?

Is that just as in "we'll hold the continuing resolution hostage first, and when that doesn't work, we'll fall back on holding the debt limit hostage", or are these people saying they will pass an increase in the debt limit?