The fine folks over at Politicker are reporting that House Republican Leader John Boehner is preparing to campaign for re-election to his leadership post…

Huh? 

That is quite possibly the dumbest thing I have ever heard.  The only thing that would be more stupid would be his colleagues offering Boehner, or anyone in the current House GOP Leadership, any support — except out the door.

It is so clear that we need fresh faces in our leadership for Republicans in the Senate and the House.

Boehner and his team can point to no meaningful policy victories whilst in the minority (Oh, except Boehner supported the outrageous government bail-out of Wall Street, but so did Pelosi.  That was more a victory, with Pelosi, against conservatives and cautious taxpayers).  And it is very clear that Boehner will have presided over historic losses of Republicans during his tenure.

Exactly on what "platform" does Boehner think he could run for another term?  The reality is that Boehner’s election as leader two years ago was just a passing of the football from Speaker Denny "Our Republican Majority Is Going To Grow Government" Hastert to a member of his leadership team.  When Boehner took over, there was no "sea change" — Committee Chairmen became Ranking Members, Whips stayed on as Whips, etcetra.  

It is time for the team that has failed to provide policy and political leadership to step aside, and let’s have a vibrant discussion of who can rise up to lead Republicans after today’s election.

Boehner is a nice guy.  But that isn’t what we need right now.  At the convention in Minneapolis, I spied former House Republican Leader Bob Michael standing off to the side, watching convention goers buzz by and when I saw him, I thought — there’s a "nice guy" who was ineffective as leader, for all of the years he served.  We cannot afford to "settle in" for anoher two decades with a "nice guy" as our leader.

(Boehner’s opposition to carrying earmarks is noble, and principled.  But it is a complete failure of his leadership that he cannot create a culture amongst his own GOP colleagues to follow suit.  There is no carrot or stick.  What good is a leader that can’t lead?)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.