WASHINGTON -- Like many professionals these days, U.S. Rep. Doug Collins is tethered to his job by technology. And the Gainesville Republican will be burning up smartphone batteries from Georgia next week as the House tries to figure out who will lead it beyond the end of the month.
“The one interesting thing about Congress is we never really leave here because we’re all connected now by text and phones, and we’ll all be on the phones next week,” Collins said Friday morning, before the House left for a week-long break.
Friday brought little clarity to the chaos created when Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., ditched the speaker's race on Thursday. There is still no timetable for an election or a firm roster of candidates. Collins threw his support behind fellow Georgian Lynn Westmoreland, R-Coweta County, who is considering a run.
Westmoreland, who would be a severe long shot, told reporters Friday that he needs to go home and talk to his family about it. (Apparently he let things slip to us prematurely.)
“I’m fully supportive of that and looking forward to helping in any way possible if that’s the way this plays out in the near future,” Collins said of a Westmoreland bid.
Rep. Tom Price, R-Roswell, is calling for an interim speaker to get through the next 15 months, and he, too, could be a candidate for the job after mounting a majority leader run that is now blocked by McCarthy staying in place.
But no big names have gone public as GOP heavyweights from inside and outside the House urge Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to run.
“Right now it’s all revolving around Paul Ryan,” said Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Pooler.
Westmoreland said "right now" Ryan is the only one who can get the votes needed to win. Price told the Daily Beast his pal Ryan would "make a great speaker."
Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck tried to tamp down the frenzy with a statement: “Chairman Ryan appreciates the support he's getting from his colleagues but is still not running for speaker."
This only led to more frenzy in its use of present tense, with reporters wondering whether it left an opening for Ryan to run in the future.
His reticence stems from family reasons and the fact that being speaker is not a fun job. The praise for Ryan in the Georgia delegation was sometimes tempered with the question of: Would you wish the speakership on a friend?
Said Carter:
"He may be right now just about one of the very few who can unite the whole caucus. Selfishly, you know, I hope Paul is careful because I personally am a big Paul Ryan fan and I think he's going to be a great president one day and I don't want him to be caught up in all of this. But at the same time, you know, we sure could use him right now."
The only sure thing to emerge from a closed-door House GOP meeting this morning is that Speaker John Boehner will stay on as long as it takes for the House to find a successor.
Rep. Rob Woodall, R-Lawrenceville, said he’s confident a capable leader will step forward. But restive members of the caucus might not comply.
"The truth is we don't have a leadership problem here. We have a leadership vacancy and a followership problem. You can't run your own play when you go out there on the football field together. We have to beat the stew out of each other on behalf of the 700,000 people that we each represent to make sure we get this right, but once we come together on an idea we have to get together and make it happen."
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Cassville, is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, the group credited or blamed with helping oust Boehner and McCarthy. He said he did not agree with the Freedom Caucus approach and endorsement of Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., in the speaker race, but he’s looking forward to making sure the next speaker is more effective and opens the process in the House to more members.
"Look, the presidential election should be a good thermostat for what the American people are feeling. The top candidates on the Republican side are government outsiders. I mean, you look at Trump – and I'm not a supporter of Trump at all – but he breaks every rule of effective campaigning. He personally attacks people and he doesn't have the visual smiling. And yet he's leading in the polls because people are listening to how he's saying things and not what he's saying. They're frustrated."
Loudermilk said he is not going to attend The Donald's rally in Norcross on Saturday.
“I didn’t even know he was coming, but we’ve got a few distractions going on here,” Loudermilk said.
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