Exit John Boehner

ON THE day that he announced his resignation as Speaker of the House of Representatives, September 25th, John Boehner treated reporters to a burst of “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”. It was hard to begrudge Mr Boehner a few bars of song: his nearly five years as the most powerful Republican in America have been made wretched by endless revolts from the hard-right. Alas, Mr Boehner’s departure at the end of October will do little to heal their cause: a deep dispute within the Republican Party about congressional power, and whether it is best used to affect incremental change, or to pursue unyielding ideological combat.

The betting is that Mr Boehner will be succeeded by the current House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, an amiable Californian. Mr McCarthy will not be trilling about wonderful days or bluebirds any time soon. There are 247 Republican members in the current House of Representatives. Mr Boehner’s woes centre on about 40 or 50 of them. These members either believe, or represent districts full of voters who believe, that the country should have taken a decisively conservative turn after Republicans won control of the House in 2010, and especially after their party added control of the Senate in 2014. In vain, Mr Boehner and other party leaders point to the Democrat sitting in the White House, and the many checks and balances built into the American system of government.

Mr Boehner is no moderate squish. He is, however, easy to paint as a Washington insider. He is a golf-loving, chain-smoking, Merlot-quaffing, small-government Reagan conservative of the sort that can be found in Rotary Clubs and chambers of commerce across the country. He entered Congress in 1991, serving as a lieutenant to Newt Gingrich. A tireless fundraiser, he is unashamed to count corporate lobbyists as friends (and frequent golf partners), many of them former staffers who make up a network dubbed “Boehnerland”.

A recent poll showed that 62% of Republican supporters feel “betrayed” by their party. If they cannot pass laws to cut away at Mr Obama’s agenda, hardliners itch to use blunter instruments. These include blocking rises in the federal debt ceiling and shutting down the government rather than allow public money to be spent on programmes that displease them. They are deaf to arguments that Republicans can change the country only by controlling the White House as well as Congress—and that shutdowns alienate voters needed to win the presidency.

Mr Boehner spent years letting hardliners test their theories to destruction. After a disastrous government shutdown in 2013, he explained that many members wanted that fight, and he had joined them because “a leader without followers is simply a man taking a walk.” Mr Boehner cannot be blamed for colleagues’ delusions, but at times Republicans privately struggled to see what his Speakership was for.

As a lame duck Mr Boehner is now free to use Democratic votes to pass some measures, starting with a short-term bill to fund the government until December while Republicans debate strategies for denying money to Planned Parenthood, a group that provides abortions. Other pressing tasks include the debt ceiling, funding federal highway construction and possibly renewing the authority of the Export-Import Bank, an export-finance agency.

In a striking interview on September 29th with Fox News, a TV channel, Mr McCarthy said he agreed with voters who felt betrayed by Republican leaders, and gave Mr Boehner’s Speakership a grade of B minus. But when asked if he would shut the government to thwart Mr Obama, he talked of seeking strategies to “fight and win”. In today’s House of Representatives, a blocking minority of Republicans will settle for a fight.