Q&A of the Day – Kevin McCarthy’s Record
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
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Today’s Entry: Happy new year, Brian. Good to have you back on the air. What is your personal opinion on the conservative insurgency in the House? Fox is melting down & behaving like the establishment ‘Con, inc.’ (as I heard it said on telegram) that they are, so are even some very conservative pundits. Others, where I am more inclined to be, say that we cannot continue with the same sell-out, democrat-light betrayal of the conservative voters who put Republicans in office.
Bottom Line: I appreciate the question because it opens up a line of thinking based on analysis that’s probably worth discussing. Perception vs. reality pertaining to Kevin McCarthy specifically. As will probably be of no surprise to you, my opinion is based on his actual record as opposed to perhaps the collective perception of his record. As always there are two sides to stories and one side to facts...so let’s look at the facts pertaining to Kevin McCarthy’s personal voting record. For the purpose of this exercise, I’m going to compare his personal voting record in the House to others under consideration. To do this I’m going to use the method I have when comparing voting records of Florida’s congressional delegation in recent years. The percentage of the time votes were cast in favor of President Trump’s position (and most recently President Biden’s).
During President Trump’s four years in office here’s the voting record of Kevin McCarthy compared to Trump’s position on the issues:
In other words, the distance between McCarthy and Trump was only 2.7%. If Trump is viewed as a conservative barometer, and anti-establishment, that’s a highly compelling case for McCarthy. In fact, by way of comparison, there’s not a single active member of the Florida Republican delegation which served at least one full two-year term in the House with Trump as president that had a more conservative voting record. To further illustrate the point... Ron DeSantis’ voting record through Trump’s first two years in office, prior to becoming governor, was 94.3%. Yes, McCarthy’s voting record was 3% more conservative than Ron DeSantis’. How many people would have guessed that one? And how about Florida’s Matt Gaetz who’s been one of the defacto leaders of the opposition to McCarthy? His voting record was only with Trump’s position 85% of the time. A record that was 12.3% less conservative, or Trumpian if you will. And as for Biggs who posed the first challenge. His Trump record was 82.9%. At this point, you get the point.
These exercises are important because in reality, the average person isn’t going to know how, or even to think of comparing actual voting records, to effectively make these deductions. Instead, the court of public opinion has been fairly easy to shape through interviews and insults by the opposition Republicans suggesting McCarthy isn’t conservative enough. McCarthy’s voting record under President Trump was one of the most conservative in congress and one which was far more conservative that any of the members who are leading the challenge to his nomination. Based on those facts, the perception by many appears to be vastly different than reality. And in my mind, it does raise additional questions, which have been raised by many GOP members starting with McCarthy, regarding what their true intentions are. Here you have people with far less conservative voting records going scorched earth on McCarthy with what have appeared to be opaque demands.
Given that you asked for my opinion and given that my opinion is derived from facts here goes. Prior to the votes for Speaker this week the best argument against McCarthy in my view, was that he was the Republican House leader during an election cycle in which Republicans underperformed historical norms in House races. That’s a fact and a potentially compelling one based upon the level of importance you place on a leader’s ability to recruit and assist in having more like-minded members within the ranks (contrasted with creating and executing a legislative agenda). If that were the sole argument by the McCarthy dissenter’s I could respect the dissention based on principle. However, given that the prevailing argument has been that McCarthy is a product of the establishment and thus not conservative enough to lead a conservative agenda in the House – well that’s utter BS based on actual Congressional records. The dissenters are projecting and relying on general ignorance of records to win the day. That’s not something I respect, and it does ooze of potential political opportunism for them to A) raise their political profiles and B) Perhaps gain more influence in the next Congress, whenever it gets underway, than they’d otherwise have.
I’ve always addressed intellectual honesty as a key to how I evaluate people and arguments. It’s one thing to attempt to argue positions in the arena of ideas. It’s another when deception is used to attempt to achieve one’s objectives. The person I’ve identified with the most throughout this process has been Southwest Florida Congressman Byron Donalds. He who voted twice for McCarthy, but who voted elsewhere afterwards while saying “McCarthy doesn’t have the votes”. That’s both pragmatism and intellectual honesty in motion. This does need to be settled sooner than later, and not doing so is harming the conservative cause, not so much through public perception, but because important investigations aren’t being conducted and time is being lost by the day.