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Top Republican McCarthy closer than ever to US Speaker’s gavel

By AFP
17 November 2022   |   9:27 am
Spurned by his party once before in his bid to lead the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy is on a path to grasping the Speaker's gavel -- and becoming second in line to the presidency.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, walks to the podium to speak after he was nominated to be Speaker of the House at the US Capitol in Washington, DC on November 15, 2022. – Top US Republican Kevin McCarthy was chosen Tuesday as his party’s leader in the House of Representatives — putting him in prime position to become Speaker if his camp reclaims control of the chamber as expected. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)

Spurned by his party once before in his bid to lead the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy is on a path to grasping the Speaker’s gavel — and becoming second in line to the presidency.

He has won a leadership vote that was a symbolic loyalty test among Republicans, but it solidifies McCarthy, 57, as the frontrunner when the Speaker of the House of Representatives is elected on the first day of the new Congress in January.

And McCarthy got more good news as expected on Wednesday as his party clinched control of the House with at least 218 of its 435 seats. With some races still undecided, the final cushion will still be much thinner than party leaders had expected from last week’s mid-term elections.

“Republicans have officially flipped the People’s House!” McCarthy tweeted after TV networks called the House race for his party. This means Congress will be split, as Democrats retained the Senate.

“Americans are ready for a new direction, and House Republicans are ready to deliver,” he continued.

McCarthy has led the Republican caucus in the lower house since 2014 and has strived to replace Democrat Nancy Pelosi as Speaker, who is next in the line of succession after the Vice President.

– Underrated? –
McCarthy — who represents the conservative enclave of Bakersfield in liberal California — has been in politics for most of his adult life, as a state legislator and US lawmaker in Washington.

He doesn’t have any major legislative achievements to his name and has never chaired a House committee, unlike each of the last three speakers.

But he is a consummate networker, admired for his prolific fundraising and his people management — meeting his members’ demands when he can and assuaging their concerns when he cannot.

“I actually think that he is a bit underestimated,” Brendan Buck, a former McCarthy staffer and an aide to the last two Republican speakers, said on his new political podcast, “Control.”

“There is this narrative surrounding him that he has always been the sidekick and maybe someone who is not up to the job of being speaker. But I think that generally misunderstands what the role of speaker is.”

With a Democratic White House, Republicans see it as a relatively straightforward task: object to every policy proposal by President Joe Biden and dog his administration with investigations.

– ‘My Kevin’ –
McCarthy has had a handful of run-ins with far-right figures in his party, whom he is accused of failing to rein in, and one of them, Arizona congressman Andy Biggs, says he will challenge McCarthy and that “his speakership should not be a foregone conclusion.”

Outside of his own caucus, McCarthy and former president Donald Trump have been useful to one another since the business magnate first took office, enjoying a largely cordial relationship.

The mercurial Trump — who has announced he will make his third White House run — would have no difficulty wrangling enough support among his House allies to block McCarthy’s ascent, but he remains supportive of the politician he calls “my Kevin.”

McCarthy berated Trump over the 2021 attack on the US Capitol — but days later was the first top Republican to make a pilgrimage to Florida to visit the former president.

The trip may have upset Democrats, but it allowed Trump to move on. McCarthy stopped criticizing his powerful patron and the pair continue to speak regularly.

The son of a firefighter and grandson of a cattle rancher, McCarthy grew up in a working-class household.

He married his high school sweetheart and the couple still live in the first house they bought, where they raised two children.

– Biggest blunder –
After four years in the California assembly, McCarthy entered the US House of Representatives in 2007, steadily working his way up and becoming a minority leader in 2019.

He ran for speaker in 2015 but dropped out amid a right-wing backlash to perhaps the biggest blunder of his career, over the deadly 2012 Benghazi attack.

Support dropped away after he said the panel investigating the Islamist assault on US facilities in the Libyan city was actually created to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

But McCarthy’s most controversial moments tend to be when he is called out for a lack of candor rather than an overabundance.

In one particularly embarrassing example, The New York Times reported that he informed colleagues he was going to advise Trump to resign over his role in the 2021 insurrection.

McCarthy denied making the comments — until the Times reporters released a tape.

McCarthy has also raised eyebrows over recent comments on his party’s plans for 2023, which he has suggested might include reining in aid to help Ukraine in its war with Russia.

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