No one in the House Republican caucus thinks the man who befriended Muammar Qaddafi and lolled away his evenings at the Qaddafi family ranch, is any kind of threat to their political careers.Beltway Republicans expect McCain to blow any minute now-- and that the target of his wrath will be the far right of the House Republican caucus this time-- teabaggers, Know Nothings and the blatantly racist end of the party. But they're laughing at the 2008 presidential candidate. His opposition-- the louder and more vitriolic, the better-- makes them stronger with an electoral base that gets all its information from Hate Talk Radio and Fox News. He's mad because the right-wingers are blocking immigration reform again and letting their anti-Hispanic/anti-Asian freak flags fly one more time. McCain worries that they're leading the party into a ditch so deep they'll never recover-- sort of like what happened to the California Republican Party when it went off on a racist jihad against Hispanics and turned itself into a sad, toothless rump. Still, Molly Hooper at The Hill, perhaps looking for some political news during the long, sweltering July 4th weekend, predicts that McCain is "on a collision course with House conservatives" (although she means House reactionaries or House fascists. McCain is a conservative. John Barrow. Lindsey Graham, John Boehner and Walter Jones are conservatives. Steve King and Louie Gohmert and Steve Stockman and racists, fascists and, if you want to be polite, reactionaries).
Throughout his Senate career, McCain has clashed with House Republican lawmakers over high-profile issues, including campaign finance reform, detainee interrogation techniques, earmarks and tax cuts. This year, McCain has ripped Republicans in the lower chamber for not agreeing to enter into a budget conference with the Senate.Some political observers believe it’s just a matter of time before McCain aggressively goes after House GOP members for not voting on the Senate-passed immigration measure.The five-term senator has stopped short of criticizing Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) vow to move immigration reform only if a majority of House GOP lawmakers are on board. Yet, McCain made a pointed comment last weekend that suggested he would only bite his tongue for so long.“I really don’t feel it's appropriate for me to tell [Boehner] exactly how he should handle this. But I think Republicans realize the implications for the future of the Republican Party in America if we don't get this issue behind us,” McCain said on Fox News Sunday.Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who strongly opposes the Senate bill, took issue with McCain’s warning, but said he expects the 2008 GOP presidential nominee to continue challenging conservatives on the airwaves.“Most of what [McCain] will do, in my anticipation is through the media. … He likes to drop a little bomb and watch how people will react, and he’ll do it again,” King said in an interview with The Hill.King said McCain “should have learned his lesson” when he tried to pass immigration reform with the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).
You can imagine how frustrating it is for a mainstream conservative like McCain when he finds himself on a team with people talking about, as Louie Gohmert recently did (video below) about people who have "a love for an animal" and want to get married-- a well known and long-standing problem in the east Texas district he represents.Do you miss Michele Bachmann yet?