It's time: Devin Nunes, 56th House Speaker
Nine months ago as the race for 55th House speaker bogged down, it was clear to this author, as she stood vigil by her ailing, now late father’s hospital bed, that Devin Nunes was “the ideal unity candidate.”
In the immediate aftermath of the “tyranny of the wackadoodle caucus,” Lou Dobbs immediately began to float Devin’s name for House Speaker.
Kevin McCarthy was “a good guy,” a close friend, very conservative, who saw it upclose, told me. He knew how to maneuver in a very complex system where everyone has their POV and their price.
Devin is Kevin’s conservative doppelgänger. Both came to Congress around the same time, Devin in 2003, Kevin in 2007, and both are from California. And, Devin knows his way around — knows all the shenanigans, and has the smarts and the integrity and the endurance to swoop in and get the job done.
And, let’s be crystal clear: We need to get past this interlude and turn lemons into lemonade ex poste haste. If not, the Republicans can forget the Congress and the Presidency in 2024. People will say, they can’t run the trains. And, while, in Democrats, we might have a corrupt railroad engineer, at least we’re moving, maybe not on time, maybe not the route we would choose, but we’re moving.
Ponder the discipline with which the Democrats move and act and the fact that Pelosi had so much power because she could command her troops. You can’t run the House with eight “kamikazi conservatives” ready to blow up the place at the drop of a hat. In that scenario, you have zero negotiating power with the other side.
********************************************
So, without further adieu, I give you, “The Ideal Unity Candidate,” first posted on January 2, 2023.
********************************************
The contest is on.
In a wide-ranging interview with Breitbart, President Donald J. Trump responded to former House Speaker Paul Ryan’s assertion that Republicans cannot win with Trump as the presidential nominee in 2024.
“They said that in 2016 too, and then they said that in 2020,” said Trump. “But they didn’t say it with very much enthusiasm, and I ended up getting 12 million more votes than I did in 2016 and by any stretch—look, that election was rigged.” (Which, more and more, is being validated. Exhibit A being the Pennsylvania court ruling on Nov. 1, 2022 regarding rules for counting absentee ballots.)
In contrast, he said, Ryan was a weak vice presidential candidate in 2012, failing to point out Obama’s losing vulnerabilities, while handing Democrats a winning issue. “When Romney picked him I said ‘that’s the end of that election.’ Remember the wheelchair? He’s got the wheelchair over the cliff. That was Paul Ryan. No, he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it.” Trump was, of course, referring to Ryan’s tone-deafness in 2011, when it came to Medicare cuts, Trump arguing against cuts at that time as this author wrote in “The Art of the Entitlement Deal.”
In 2009, Ryan co-sponsored a smart piece of legislation called the The Patients Choice Act, along with then Cong. Devin Nunes (R-CA), from the Central Valley of California, and two others. But, Ryan failed to highlight its policy and political brilliance and the bill got no traction and no publicity. So, this author worked with Nunes and his staff to write an article on “Healthcare Reform: The Private Option,” published by the Manhattan Institute’s Medical Progress Today on October 23, 2009.
Powerful health care interests would not allow the bill to see the light of day. But Nunes knew exactly how to parry the Democrats’ plan to put health care on a single-payer trajectory, but was not given the opportunity. And, there was a window to put patients first, as this author suggested in “Republicans’ health care summit trump card,” published in the Washington Times on February 22, 2010. But, given the lack of leadership, the reconciled Obamacare bill subsequently passed on March 23, 2010, a month after the health care summit. It had initially passed both chambers just like this year’s Omnibus monstrosity on or about Christmas Eve. Recall that then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, they needed to pass the bill in March 2010 to see what was in it.
Paul Davis Ryan was born in Janesville, Wisconsin on January 29, 1970, graduating from Miami University in Ohio in 1992, after which he was the anointed “golden boy” starting at Empower America as Jack Kemp’s speechwriter. Then, he became top legislative aide for Cong. Sam Brownback before returning home to Wisconsin in 1997 to work for his family’s construction company and run for Congress, winning a seat in 1998 after which he was spirited into top positions, including House Budget Chair in 2007, edging out more senior members, and then Speaker of the House, elected on October 29, 2015, when John Boehner resigned and no one else wanted the job. He resigned the speakership four years ago tomorrow after Republicans lost the House.
Nice guy but he simply does not have the right stuff other than an affable demeanor and ability to follow the neoconservative power blueprint point by point. And while he was an able Budget Committee Chairman, he went too far on Medicare cuts, as noted, and fumbled the ball again and again as House Speaker.
Evidently, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy—Ryan’s handpicked successor— has only 213 votes to become the next House Speaker in spite of the fact that he is promising everything but the kitchen sink to the House Freedom Caucus to get their votes, including the right to vacate the chair. So, if not McCarthy, who? Problem is, all the candidates whose names are being floated either don’t want the job or don’t have the support.
The irony is that Devin Nunes, just 49, is the ideal “unity candidate.”
Smart as a whip with proven strength, he puts country above all else, evidenced by his relentless drive to get to the bottom of the Russia hoax that shackled Trump’s presidency in spite of which he managed to get loads done for the American people vis-à-vis energy independence, border security, deregulation, thereby freeing up the economy, etc. Nor was Nunes’ investigation exactly a career boost for him, and he resigned from congress just a year ago, the power brokers, no doubt, thinking his political career was deader than dead.
But, just like Theodore Roosevelt in his battles with Roscoe Conkling, Senator from New York, left for politically dead when he was kicked up to the vice presidency, only to be resurrected as President of these United States less than a year later; Devin Nunes’ moment has arrived. And, as House Speaker, since Nunes resigned his post, he could focus undivided attention on moving the busy House agenda forward to save America at this perilous hour.
Yes, the contest is on. And, Devin Nunes is Central Casting for the Republican unity candidate for 55th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends, published in Madrid under the title También Dios pasa por Hollywood. She has completed a biography about Betty Hutton, as well Oasis II, featuring six more legends of Hollywood, and is currently writing a book about the life of Ernest Hemingway viewed through the prism of faith due to be published in late 2024.