If Not Speaker Johnson — Who?

The question for those House Republicans opposing the re-election of House Speaker Mike Johnson is an obvious one.

That would be: If not Speaker Johnson — who?

And the glaringly obvious answer to that glaringly obvious question is: The Johnson opponents have no obvious choice as a Johnson successor.

Suffice it to say no Newt Gingrich-style candidate is waiting in the wings. In the long-ago mist of time that was the 1990s, the discomfort of rank-and-file House GOP members with the GOP House leadership of the day was apparent. Leading the charge for change was Georgia’s young conservative rebel, Congressman Newt Gingrich.

The Gingrich career was telling. A young history professor at the University of West Georgia, he ran and was elected to Congress in 1978, the first Republican in the 6th district to win the job. By 1989, he was elected House Republican Whip and co-wrote something unknown by the Republicans of the day: a platform and agenda called the Contract with America, which led to the first GOP House Majority since 1954, a long 40 years earlier. With that, Newt Gingrich became Speaker Gingrich.

And today? Where is the Newt Gingrich-style, oh-so-obvious choice to replace Speaker Johnson? He or she is not in evidence.

The Hill reports:

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) heads to the House floor on Friday in hopes of being formally reelected Speaker.

While Johnson has the endorsement of President-elect Trump to remain Speaker, one Republican is pledging to oppose him, and several others are not committing to supporting Johnson. That has raised questions about whether he can win enough votes to keep his gavel, given the House GOP’s razor-thin majority.

Notice anything? There is no mention of an obvious alternative to Johnson who has the votes to defeat the Speaker and win the election himself or herself.

Which is to say, until that person emerges, an effort to replace Speaker Johnson is much ado about nothing. All this kerfuffle does is stir up negative headlines about a chaotic House Republican Majority that, Speaker Johnson or not, seems to have no agenda and no idea what it is doing.

So what will the anti-Johnson Republicans do now? Who is leading them? Who has the votes to defeat Johnson?

Until they come up with that answer, the move to replace Speaker Mike Johnson is going nowhere. And the alternative is chaos.

Not good.

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