McCarthy Calls it Quits!

Today, the day set as the date of the election of John Boehner's successor as Speaker of the House, frontrunner Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., shocked the GOP (and the rest paying attention) with his withdrawal from the race for Speaker.  This unexpected dropout was announced literally minutes before the set time of the election, and forced the election's postponement.  Such postponement also means that the current Speaker, John Boehner, must remain in office past his original announced retirement on October 30.

McCarthy's announcement is truly one that not many people saw coming.  As the projected winner of the speakership since the day Boehner announced his resignation, it was taken for granted that McCarthy would win the spot.  Even with the announcement of other House members to run, McCarthy was still the heavy favorite.  So why drop out? Is it a direct result of his comments during a Fox News interview last week?  

As many know by now, McCarthy has become the target of criticism from both sides of the aisle for his comments about the negative effect that the Benghazi Committee had on presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton's, polling numbers.  McCarthy made it seem as if the committee was formed for that intention, and many Republicans have very passionately corrected that the committee was formed for the sole purpose of uncovering the truth, and has absolutely no political motivation.  McCarthy even found himself defending these comments as he announced his withdrawal to the media.  

Though McCarthy said the reason for his decision was to ensure that the party was united behind the speaker (as he feels he would not receive unanimous endorsement), it seems pretty likely that that McCarthy decided to walk away from the speakership under the pressure of fellow Republicans to do so.  The reason: to de-publicize the comments and prevent Democratic campaigns from exploiting misuse of the Benghazi investigations in the 2016 election.  But if the potentially disastrous comments were already made, then how would this help?  

The answer lies in the political engagement, or lack there of, of the American people.  Many Americans do not even know who John Boehner is, let alone his projected successor.  But I'm sure many more people know about Boehner now, after he received a good deal of media coverage upon announcement of his resignation.  Likewise, many people probably don't know who Kevin McCarthy is, but they will be familiar with the name if he is announced the next Speaker of the House.  It only makes sense, that keeping Kevin McCarthy relatively unknown to the public will help shield his comments from receiving too much media attention.  This could prove to be effective because these are the voters, those with minimal knowledge of lower ranking congressional officials, are the portion of the voting base that are more likely to be swayed using exploitative tactics.  However, coverage of the withdrawal from the race on its own could be enough to expose the politically motivated intentions of the Benghazi committee, but this information isn't likely to even reach the voters on which it would have the greatest impact.  

http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/mccarthy-shocks-conference-by-dropping-speaker-bid/?dcz=

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/mccarthy-withdraws-from-speaker-race-election-postponed-214560

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/256365-mccarthy-drops-out-of-speakers-race