McCarthy makes it official: He wants to become next speaker

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is making a generational pitch in his bid to be House speaker. I know that you ran for Congress to make a difference, to leave a better country for your kids and grandkids. He said he’ll decide in a day or two when to set internal party elections for his successor and possibly for other leadership posts.

“I told the members this morning, I have not decided when the leadership elections will occur”. We have made real progress towards shrinking an overgrown federal government and reforming our broken entitlement system.

In a letter to colleagues announcing he would run for the job and during an appearance on Fox News hours later, McCarthy tried to appease Boehner’s GOP critics while dropping hints that he would be willing to compromise on issues such as immigration. Moderates within the House GOP caucus had been pushing for any plan that will avoid a shutdown while more conservative members had vowed to strip funding from Planned Parenthood programs at any cost.

McCarthy is serving his fifth term in Congress and has been endorsed by Boehner.

Since assuming both houses in January, House and Senate Republicans have increasingly sparred over tactics, starting in February over immigration legislation, continuing this spring and summer in a battle over surveillance laws and highway funding – and most recently over the strategy to defund Planned Parenthood.

The Speaker’s position will open at the end of next month when U.S. Rep. John Boehner retires. “I mean are they just speechmakers?” As he is hardly a liberal Republican himself, Boehner’s mistake in his party’s eyes seems to have been nothing more than a willingness to reach across the aisle and negotiate with Democrats in a pragmatic manner. “There is a lot more”, McCarthy said. And as Terri Studer, campaign committee chair for the Ohio Federation of Republican Women, explains, locals we just as shocked by Boehner’s resignation announcement. They have not said whether they will ask for something specific in return for their support.

He later added: “Look, I’m a little younger”.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif. smiles after…

But a few of the same conservatives who pushed Boehner out are dissatisfied with McCarthy as a replacement, and they command enough votes to block his ascent.

He is expected to meet this week with the House Freedom Caucus, the Tuesday Group, and the Republican delegations from Pennsylvania and Texas, Politico reports.

To be elected, McCarthy would first need a majority of the 247 House Republicans, in a vote conducted by secret ballot. “At this point, I support Daniel Webster, yes”, he said.