Steve Benen is a producer for 'The Rachel Maddow Show,' the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of 'The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics.'
One of the most striking elements of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s bid for speaker is how quickly the events unfolded. On Tuesday, Oct. 4, House Republicans launched a successful effort to oust then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Roughly 24 hours later, Scalise announced his candidacy to succeed him. One week after that, at roughly 3 p.m. eastern, the Louisiana congressman won a secret-ballot election and formally received his party’s nomination.
The former speaker, among other things, made promises he didn’t keep, made contradictory commitments to different factions, picked fights he couldn’t win, failed to count well, pushed vulnerable members to cast difficult votes for no benefit, directed his conference to focus on foolish trivialities, and never learned the value of making plans, preferring instead to “wing it” in the hopes of surviving the day, becoming a chess player who only thought one move at a time.
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