People have been saying for years now that Kevin McCarthy will never be Speaker of the House.
I don't quite see it, because if not McCarthy, then who? But let's go along with this in imagination, and see how it plays out:
Only five Republicans need to defect to keep McCarthy from winning a first floor vote for Speaker -- and that could come from any of the 31 Republicans who voted against him for Majority Leader in November.
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But then what? They would need to cohere until McCarthy drops out and the whole Republican caucus can find a consensus candidate. But who's up for that? And who can really command the votes of people who want Democrats off all committees, who want prosecutions, government shutdowns, impeachments?
Somewhere in there Republicans might start having talks with Democrats, saying, "Hmmm, if you can give us five or ten votes, that'd be great," but they're not likely to offer much for that.
In return for cooperation, the Democrats might ask for the opposite of what the right wing of the Republican caucus wants-- basically, a commitment to govern, without a lot of time wasted on grandstanding. But the Republicans can't really commit to that--that's their shtik.
At the end of the day, there really isn't such a thing as a cross-party compromise candidate. There's either a R-backed candidate with D support or a D-backed candidate with R support.
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@DavidSalo
If pubs can't agree on a speaker.., maybe Hakeem Jeffries should be speaker. Pubs would absolutely HATE that.