Deepening internal Republican rancour to complicate political agenda

Far from quelling dissent in the Republican ranks, the resignation of US House speaker John Boehner is intensifying the divide that has emboldened hard- right politicians and insurgent presidential candidates, leaving a party that prides itself on orderly process in uncharacteristic disarray.

The top three candidates in the Republican presidential race at the moment have one thing in common: they have never held elective office. Dozens of members of the House of Representatives have held their seats only since 2010 and many of them ran on a platform to force a drastic reduction in the role of government.

A new class of billionaire donors, who can contribute unlimited amounts of money to support a candidate, has undercut the power and relevance of the national party.

While the split will play out soonest in Congress, where Boehner’s resignation may make it easier to push through a temporary funding measure to keep the government open, the deepening internal Republican rancour will complicate virtually everything on the political agenda, and most likely dominate a critical phase of the presidential race just ahead of the first caucus and primary votes.

There are signs of more mainstream conservatives pushing back, saying the tactics demonstrated by hardliners have accomplished nothing except the early departure of Boehner.

"The people who keep saying that they want things to happen, what have they accomplished?" Ohio governor John Kasich, a Republican presidential candidate, asked on Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation. He added: "Maybe they ought to look in the mirror. What have they accomplished? I mean, are they just speechmakers? Are they just people out there yelling and screaming?"

Others warned against a rightward march, but that is the direction of the moment. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released on Sunday found that a combined 52 per cent of Republican primary voters supported Donald J Trump, Ben Carson or Carly Fiorina, none of whom has ever been elected to office.

This anti-Washington fervour has prompted the Republican candidates to go to great lengths to portray themselves as change agents primed to topple the party establishment.

Boehner was leading a House in which Republicans had their largest majority since Herbert Hoover was president. Yet even as he tried to appease members with repeated votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act or to defund Planned Parenthood, more absolutist conservatives were not satisfied.

The hardline group has not put forward a viable candidate for speaker and, with only 50 or so members, does not have enough to elevate one of their own. While that leaves Boehner’s number two, the majority leader Kevin McCarthy of California, well positioned to succeed him, it was clear that the speaker’s departure was being viewed by his critics not as a moment to reunify the party but to push harder against the establishment.

The hardliners seem poised to attack a likely deal this week between Boehner and Democrats to avoid a government shutdown as yet another example of collusion between establishment Republican leaders and the Obama White House – and the legislative stakes will become greater.

Congress will most likely have to vote this autumn on raising the federal debt ceiling as well as deal with the imminent expiration of many highway programmes, a continuing debate over reauthorising the Export-Import Bank, and the need for a longer-term spending bill with an expected deadline of December 11th.

How the fight in Congress plays out will also help define the struggle for the party’s national identity. As just one measure: the ranks of its moderates have shrunk to just a few members. Even as conservatives rage against not having 60 votes in the Senate to overcome Democratic filibusters, or the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto, their rhetoric is almost certain to diminish the party’s chances of expanding its majorities.

That would require winning seats in swing states and districts, where voters often prefer more centrist views.

One Republican who has stoked the revolt in the House, Senator Ted Cruz, has vexed Senate Republican leaders and increasingly found himself isolated on policy debates as he has been in advocating a government shutdown again, this time over Planned Parenthood.

He is getting support though for his presidential bid from the party’s more conservative quarters. “Something needs to change, the writing is on the wall,” said Michael Needham, who heads Heritage Action for America, a conservative advocacy group that has sharply criticized the party leadership.

“Are we going to be the party of the donor class or the party of free enterprise and conservative values?”

Representative Bill Flores of Texas, head of the Republican Study Committee, said the hardliners often seemed bent on destruction. “If you look at what’s happened the last few weeks, you have had people trying to burn the House down,” he said.

One of the first tests of where Republicans are headed will come in the race to succeed Boehner. Although McCarthy is the favourite, many in his party say they do not simply want a reprise of Boehner’s leadership. There are also contests for the other top positions and the fiercest fight is expected to be for majority leader, the number-two post.

Among the main contenders are Steve Scalise of Louisiana, currently number three in leadership, conference chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, and the budget committee chairman, Tom Price of Georgia. Conservatives are demanding that one of their own be represented, and it isn’t clear that McMorris Rodgers or Price would satisfy them.

Similar battles are expected for party whip and potentially for the conference chair should McMorris Rodgers leave that position. Peter Roskam of Illinois was urging his colleagues not to rush to choose a new team, encouraging them instead to meet and form a concrete plan of action first.

For his part, Boehner expressed that exasperation on Sunday, accusing the hardliners, in an interview on Face the Nation, when he was asked if the hardliners were unrealistic.

“Absolutely they’re unrealistic!” he said, almost shouting, “but the Bible says, beware of false prophets. And there are people out there spreading noise about how much can get done. I mean, this whole idea that we were going to shut down the government to get rid of Obamacare in 2013, this plan never had chance.”

In the presidential race, party leaders face a delicate balance between appealing to an angry grassroots, hungry to upend the party’s leadership, and placating donors who do not want to risk losing the White House for a third straight election.

“I think over time you’re going to see people coming back to realise that we’ve got to have an adult in the room, a person that can beat a Democrat,” said Fred Zeidman, a Texas contributor to Bush, who has been eclipsed so far by Trump.

Zeidman said Boehner's exit concerned him a great deal because it might embolden the hardliners in Congress. "If we shut the government down, we're dead," he said. – (New York Times service)