House Dividing [View All]

The tea party is revolting—over the budget—which might make John Boehner’s reign shorter than he planned.

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Consider the events of last week, as the speaker of the House was scrambling to stitch together a deal to avert a government shutdown before the looming April 8 deadline. On the one hand, Boehner’s putative Democratic opponents in the White House and the Senate were signaling their readiness to seal a budget pact on terms that, by any objective measure, would amount to a major Republican victory. On the other hand, however, were Boehner’s ostensible allies—each behaving like a spastic finger jabbing him in the eye. At the base of the Capitol, the tea-party faithful staged a rally aimed at pressuring House conservatives to brook no compromise. Boehner’s former mentor Newt Gingrich met with GOP freshmen and urged much the same, arguing for spending cuts billions deeper than what the speaker regards as politically feasible. Then there was the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, openly distancing himself from, and positioning himself to the right of, his boss Boehner—a maneuver that struck some as odd, some as shifty, and others as downright treacherous.

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http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/john-boehner-heilemann-column-2011-4/