Rep. Shadegg Wins Support in Leader Race
As time marches on, the race for House Majority Leader gets more contentious all the time. John Shadegg, once considered a darkhorse for the position was boyed today with endorsements from Jeff Flake and Charlie Bass. Flake is a staunch conservative and Bass is a Northeastern liberal who voted against drilling in ANWR.
“If you care about reform and you want a fresh face, this is the man to support,” Bass told reporters. “This shows that the race is not about moderate vs. conservative, it is a choice between real reform and the status quo,” Shadegg said.
I’ve been unabashedly pro-Shadegg because (a) he’s a fiscal conservative; (b) he’s the current Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee; and (c) he’s part of the revolutionary ‘Class of 94′. Getting Bass’s endorsement certainly helps inside the caucus because it tells other moderates that Shadegg is reform-minded, which is a big selling point.
The article also had another interesting tidbit:
Blunt claims 90 public supporters and Boehner claims 44.
While this doesn’t sound newsworthy, this reveals that Blunt’s claims that he’d already achieved a majority of the House Republican caucus, this count says that he’s still 26 votes short of a majority. I suspect that this news will cause many Blunt supporters to reconsider their vote.
I suspect that many of those 90 votes were based on Blunt’s being acting Majority Leader rather than on anything else. It’ll be interesting to see if his support wanes or if Shadegg’s support increases.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing
January 24th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Gee, a fiscal conservative in DC. Now that would be something. Reminds me of the way the R’s *should* be.
January 24th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
I would call Charlie Bass of my home state of New Hampshire more of a Northeastern libertarian, and not a liberal. Just because he does not support federalizing every crime or behavior, that does not make him liberal. I agree with him that many of these matters really are better left to the states. Remember, any federal government powerful enough to give you something, is powerful enough to take it away.