The U.S. House speaker showdown ended Thursday. Who won doesn't matter as much as how he won it.
New Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., can't tame the GOP caucus. Neither can any other single House member -- but the majority of the caucus can. All they have to do is lose their fear of the "holier than thou" wing of their party and its well-funded attack backers. That's happening.
There are 247 Republicans in Congress. Only 73 are unscathed survivors of the severe defeats their party suffered in 2006 and 2008, after support for the Iraq War disappeared. The rest were all elected during the fevered backlash against President Barack Obama.
Like most people benefiting from a stunning reversal of fortune, these rookies were afraid to do anything that might change their luck. Being against Obama in everything was their magic formula. They were scared to death of anybody who might tell voters "He's not as against Obama as he says he is."
Time passed. The same voters who sent these Republicans to Washington to "Stop Obama" watched Congress try repeatedly -- and badly overplay their hand. After fiscal brinkmanship and a government shutdown backfired disastrously, the Democrats could never be bluffed again. The president is a lame duck, but he still has the veto. Congress can't repeal Obamacare and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to destroy it.
More time passed. People started to remember with nostalgia that Congress has a real job. GOP House members finally figured out they're not going to get widely blamed for failure to do the impossible. They even got some credit for trying. They've also figured out they make up the biggest GOP majority since Herbert Hoover was president. If they work together, they might get something done.
This week, Ryan won in an anti-climactic vote among his caucus and later among the whole House. The bigger vote came earlier. Congress passed a budget and debt-ceiling increase that would have caused a full-tilt conservative mutiny a month ago. It increased military spending. That's what Republicans wanted and reality requires. The deal also increased domestic spending, which the Democrats demanded.
This budget passed a Congress that tottered on the brink of a government shutdown in September over funding Planned Parenthood. That's when outgoing Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced plans to resign. That put him beyond the reach of rebels in the GOP caucus. Freed, he made a deal with the Democrats. That cleared the deck for Ryan, who now faces no fiscal cliffs until March, past the end of President Barack Obama's term.
Ryan played his part this week, making a nice show of deploring the way the deal was struck and promising he'd do things differently. That's required, but Ryan knows he owes much to the 79 Republicans brave enough to vote with the Democrats and pass this budget. He will benefit from the deal the most. By the way, he also voted for it.
All this was a clear defeat to the kamikaze wing of the Republican Party. Insiders talk about how House rules haven't changed and how a small minority can, in theory, still gum up the works. That's true but irrelevant now. You can't fight off a 5-to-1 majority with a rule book once the majority has lost their fear. The 79 called the suicide squad's bluff and everybody knows it.
Loath as I am to praise the same politician twice in one month, U.S. Rep. Steve Womack of Rogers was one of the 79 and the only one from Arkansas in either the House or the Senate who voted for the budget deal. His statement after that vote is worth quoting in full: "This budget agreement is far from ideal, but providing for our men and women in uniform and for the full faith and credit of the United States is not an option. It is a responsibility. And as an appropriator, I appreciate the fact that it gives our committee a chance to actually do its work."
Womack said in August he was going to vote for a budget deal. Being willing to take one for the team is one thing. Knowing months in advance you're going to take the hit, telling your voters first and then walking right into it is something else altogether.
Some die-hards will call Womack a RINO -- Republican in name only. That's their right. There are worse things than being named after a thick-skinned, spike-nosed stomper who can't be turned.
Commentary on 10/31/2015