As the Speaker of the House leaves office, the question of his succession is of vital importance.
This week, politics was defined by a sad and regrettable event, the resignation of the Speaker of the House, John Boehner. Whatever your opinion on the man, and mine could be incredibly negative, echoing Winston Churchill’s opinion of Clement Attlee, i.e that he was a modest man with much to be modest about, his departure should be met with sadness. His resignation ends the tenure of a fundamentally decent moderate, as Boehner was a moderating influence on Congress and his absence gives the Tea Party and their ilk a chance to complete their subversion of the GOP.
In his resignation address he said that the duty of the Speaker is to the institution of the House at large over any particular partisan interest. Boehner constantly emphasized this virtue throughout his service, negotiating the end to the disgusting and reckless government shutdowns when some within his own party attempted to hold the country ransom. Throughout those negotiations he displayed great skill in arranging the best politically possible compromise, and now he’s gone.
What does this mean exactly? For conservatives, it means that we lose a moderate who has lived up to Kennedy’s exhortation to ‘ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country’ for one of the radicals, of the cut that decided to put the country's economy on the altar for the sake of partisan victory.
For liberals it means that they trade the devil they know and can work with, for one that they don’t. If a Democrat wins the White House, the Speaker is likely going to be crucial, as he is going to be the only one who could possibly manage executive and legislative relations. Sadly, this means that Boehner’s resignation will most likely cause Congress to work even slower than it has in the past — the speed of a tired snail returning home from a funeral carrying two particularly heavy bags of coal.
We are now seeing a rightward lurch in the ranks of the GOP, with the most popular presidential candidates are from outside of the Washington establishment. We’ve had many threats of government shutdown and the coming months will be particularly busy for the House. The radicals and hardliners in Congress have hounded the mainstream Republican leadership for attempting to work with the Obama White House.
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It truly seems to me that the Republican Party is dying and is consistently out of touch with the wishes of conservatives. The party should focus on market economics, not social issues. To run a campaign on social issues now would be like choosing a sinking ship to undertake a crucial voyage. We need a moderate to come back, someone who is prepared to put the interests of state ahead of ideological preference, though it does not seem like we have one. Boehner was not a great man, or a great Speaker, but he was a man we needed.
Jack Davies is a sophomore studying philosophy and the Honors Tutorial College Senator for Student Senate. What do you think of John Boehner’s resignation? Email him at jd814213@ohio.edu.
