McCarthy: GOP needs unifier

House Majority Leader of Kevin McCarthy of California…

This post was updated at 4:25 p.m. The prohibitive favorite said he didn’t want members to take arrows for voting for him and that he was taking himself out of contention. And it was well understood that many Democrats were going to be approached about helping sustain John Boehner as speaker.

“I just think it’s best we have a new face”, said Mr McCarthy, who will remain on in his second-in-command role as majority leader. “I feel good about the decision”. So when he announced that he was not going to – that he was going to withdraw his name, I think everybody was frankly shocked.

The little-known newcomer won 12 votes when he challenged Boehner earlier this year.

McCarthy’s bid certainly wasn’t helped by recent comments applauding the House Select Committee on Benghazi for damaging the poll numbers of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Fleischmann declined to say whether he had meant to vote for McCarthy for speaker.

“We all worked to get the majority. So that’s why you talk to friends”, Gowdy told the Daily Beast. This time will be the worst time.

Chaffetz believes he can bridge the gap between centrist and far right republicans, but his path to speaker isn’t automatic.

Later Boehner, who announced on September 27 he is quitting Congress at the end of October, said he’ll stay in the job as speaker until a new leader is chosen. “I’ll stay on as majority leader”. It will be hard for any Republican, conservative or moderate, to win Florida’s 10 District in 2016 and for the foreseeable.

Ryan chairs the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee and was the GOP nominee for vice president in 2012.

Even before he stepped down, there was concern that McCarthy would have difficulty getting the 218 votes necessary to become speaker. Ryan, however, has already issued a statement that he won’t run.

McCarthy, whose position as minority leader made him John Boehner’s likely replacement, bowed out amid speculation that he did not have sufficient support to earn the promotion.

Conservative US Republicans drove frontrunner Kevin McCarthy out of the race to be the next speaker of the House on Thursday, plunging their party into disarray ahead of crucial federal budget and debt ceiling battles. He said later the party is simply too divided.

A number of Republican lawmakers said they would like to see Rep. Paul Ryan be the next speaker, but Ryan himself has repeatedly said he does not want the job. Collender said if they did that, they could isolate the 40 or so Freedom Caucus members, who used to be referred to as Tea Party Republicans.