A little over two weeks ago, Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) declared the race for majority leader over. He released a statement announcing that a majority of Republicans had pledged support to him. It was a publicity stunt, of course, an effort to turn an early lead into an invincible stampede. But he honestly believed he was on an unstoppable trajectory to victory.
John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), on the other hand, thought the claim was bogus. Camped out in a smoky office in the basement of the Longworth House Office Building, Boehner was hearing from dozens of disgruntled members of the House Republican Conference who were fed up with the current direction of the GOP and rumors that Blunt was trading favors such as better committee assignments for votes.
Boehner called Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to privately complain about Blunt's tactics, but he spent the bulk of his time pleading with Republicans to back him on the first or second ballot come election day.
Boehner's come-from-behind victory after two ballots in a closed-door vote on Capitol Hill yesterday was partly a triumph of maneuver -- the kind of deft insider intrigue on which leadership races always hinge. But it was also influenced decisively by outside events, as Boehner tapped into members' election-year anxieties about the GOP's scandal-scuffed leadership.
What Blunt presumed would be his greatest asset -- his links to the current leadership's system of power and favors -- turned out to be a liability. The day's surprise conclusion also positions Boehner as the most likely next speaker of the House, in the event that Hastert steps down after one more election and Republicans retain control of the House.
Boehner, who has extensive links to lobbyists, hardly represents a radical break from the past. He also triumphed over John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), who promised the biggest reforms and an end to special interest pork projects. But Boehner's colleagues concluded that the Ohioan represented the right mix of change and continuity.
Thomas’ role
One person critical to the Boehner approach was Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), a social moderate who refused to publicly endorse a candidate until the very end. Thomas had signaled his unhappiness with Blunt's performance as acting majority leader in recent months, after taking over from the incumbent majority leader, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), who had stepped aside after he was indicted in Texas.
Sensing opportunity, Boehner talked to the notoriously prickly and unpredictable chairman every day, sometime several times, until he secured one of the race's biggest coups in a face-to-face meeting on Tuesday.
When 231 members gathered at lunchtime yesterday for the secret-ballot vote, it was Thomas who nominated Boehner, calling him "a bridge" between the House's varied ideological and generational factions. In the end, he defeated Blunt, 122 to 109, in the second round of the election that many saw as a referendum on the direction of the scandal-stained GOP.
This article, which is based on interviews in recent weeks with the candidates, their supporters and dozens of rank-and-file members, explores how Boehner won an often bruising fight to become majority leader. Many lawmakers spoke under the condition that some material not be disclosed until the race was over. The information was confirmed by at least two sources or provided by a person directly involved in the episode.
Boehner, a perpetually tanned conservative, had spent much of the past year meeting secretly with Republicans who complained about the current leadership team, especially Blunt and his mentor, DeLay, and encouraged Boehner to launch a political comeback. More than a year ago, Blunt and Boehner discussed how they may soon be pitted against one another in face-off over DeLay's successor.
In Florida, when news of DeLay's resignation broke in early January, Boehner started calling colleagues from his vacation spot. He penned a 37-page manifesto calling for a new Republican direction and highlighted his career-long opposition to special interest pork projects in the federal budget.
He struck a more cautious note in private, assuring members that he would not overreact to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and eviscerate the lax travel and spending rules they had come to enjoy. As the candidate himself realized, Boehner as the reform candidate was not an easy sell. His beach parties for rich donors were notorious, as were the stories of how he handed out checks from tobacco executives on the House floor a decade ago.
"Yes, I am cozy with lobbyists," he told lawmakers concerned about his K Street connections, "but I have never done anything unethical."
From the beginning, Blunt was running a decidedly different campaign than Boehner. As a veteran of past leadership wars, he knew that in private many legislators craved help winning reelection, securing projects and better committee assignments -- not the clean break from excess they championed in public.
Cashing in chits
At the outset, Republicans such as Maryland's Wayne T. Gilchrest were flocking to Blunt who promised to best protect the familiar ways of doing business and the members' own self-interest. Gilchrest was a close friend of Boehner, but he voted for Blunt after the Missourian promised to back his efforts to chair a new committee overseeing the nation's oceans policies.
Like Boehner, Blunt is 56. Also like Boehner, Blunt effectively began his race years ago. An ambitious politician who persuaded DeLay to take him under his wing in the leadership team during only his third term in Congress, Blunt steadily built a favor bank for members. Over the course of his 3 1/2 -week campaign, he tried to cash in every chit he had saved.
Rep. John R. "Randy" Kuhl Jr., who considered Boehner a closer friend, could not resist Blunt's full-service treatment. Blunt had flown to his upstate New York district two years ago to campaign for Kuhl, helped him get a post office named after a constituent who was killed in Iraq, protect grape growers in his rural district, and secure funding for a job-creating nuclear waste processing plant. "Those are three things, just in one year," Kuhl said.
From the third floor of the Capitol, directly above the speaker's office, Blunt bombarded Republicans with phone calls using a database of home, cell and vacation numbers that his leadership office maintains, one of the many little-known tools of power of that give incumbents a leg up. He had a system: A couple of staffers would dial numbers on the list, and as they reached members they would patch them through to Blunt or ask them to stand by for a call back. The pitch lasted five minutes to half an hour.
Blunt knew there were concerns about his ties to DeLay, K Street and the old guard. He assured Republican lawmakers he had never done anything illegal or unethical. But he always returned the conversation quickly to what he believed was a member's bottom line. One of his first conversations was with Lamar S. Smith, a 10-term Texan whose state faced a monumental loss of clout with DeLay's departure from the leadership. For almost 50 of the past 75 years, since John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner was elected minority leader in 1929, a Texan has held one of the top three House leadership posts. With DeLay's retreat, that influence was gone.
Seeking to avoid appearances that he was trying to buy the election, Blunt not-so-subtly discussed a variety of priorities and concerns of the Texas members -- without explicitly making promises or linking action to their vote. The message was clear: Texas would do just fine with Blunt in the state's corner.
He spoke favorably of enhancing the clout of the delegation and in particular of Joe Barton, chairman of the energy committee. "We thought by going with Blunt . . . that would help our situation," said K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.). By the end of the first week, 14 of the 21 Texas Republicans were with Blunt. By the time he declared victory in mid-January, Blunt was certain he had 120 votes in the bag.
But his aggressive tactics were starting to backfire. Across the street in Longworth, Boehner was getting flooded with complaints about Blunt's tactics. Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) was fuming about a rumored deal to provide Barton some of his committee's control over telecommunications policies. "Where there is smoke, there is fire," Sensenbrenner thundered.
Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.) was telling Republicans that Blunt offered him the chairmanship of the Agriculture Committee in exchange for his vote. Blunt denied both charges.
Boehner's biggest break came when Shadegg entered the race, promising even broader changes and an outright end to the practice of "earmarking" pork projects for individual congressional districts in spending bills. "We seem to have lost sight of our ideals," Shadegg told his colleagues in his announcement letter. Boehner's numerical tracking system, which logged votes on a sliding scale of 1 to 5, showed Blunt with a small, but clear, lead when Shadegg jumped in a week after DeLay stepped down.
It takes a majority of vote to win, so Boehner knew he would probably need to force a second round and win over the Shadegg faction to prevail.
Shadegg, also 56, regards himself as a conservative purist; his father was an adviser to the patron saint of the modern conservative movement, the late Sen. Barry M. Goldwater (R-Ariz.).
He who hesitates ...
If Republicans really wanted change, Shadegg offered it. He was a reliable advocate of cutting taxes and spending and bucked the president and party leaders by opposing the No Child Left Behind education law and the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, two big government programs that economic conservatives deplore. Boehner and Blunt voted for both. The Wall Street Journal, National Review and several conservative talk radio hosts heartily endorsed him.
Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.), who nominated Shadegg yesterday, told the Republican Conference that "the public believes we abused our power" and would accept nothing less than wholesale change.
Yet Shadegg committed a cardinal sin of leadership races -- he hesitated. He gave Blunt and Boehner a week's head start and his campaign never gained traction. Boehner, knowing he need his votes plus Shadegg's, did everything but publicly embrace the Arizonan. If Shadegg issued a statement, Boehner endorsed it. If lawmakers pledged their support to Shadegg, Boehner praised them for opting for change.
One key part of their joint strategy was to pressure Blunt to step down as House majority whip, the third-ranking leadership job, to run for the number two position. Several members told Boehner and Shadegg they were afraid to endorse them publicly because they might pay a price later if Blunt remained in leadership.
"There is always a concern if you bet on the wrong horse in leadership races you will be out of favor with leadership for a while and there will be some retribution," said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.).
The two spoke privately the day before Shadegg entered the race and secretly plotted strategy together two weeks later to pressure Blunt into a joint appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." They sat side by side at the State of the Union address.
By the beginning of this week, Shadegg sounded annoyed by the tactic. "If someone gets into the race and he is attracting votes, you want to hug him close," he told reporters at a Monday meeting of 60 conservative lawmakers. "I am not hugging John Boehner."
That meeting proved to be a turning point. Blunt showed up dressed for the office in a navy-blue suit and red tie, and he responded sympathetically to the group's calls for legislative reforms to cut spending and curtail lobbyist influence. He didn't hurt himself, participants said, but he didn't set the room ablaze, either.
Boehner, in a red sweater and navy slacks, went immediately on the offense with his own detailed agenda for change. He talked about his conservative Roman Catholic, working-class upbringing as one of 12 children. Lawmakers who attended said they were dazzled. "It made a very big difference for him," said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who attended the meeting and seconded Shadegg's nomination but backed Boehner on the second ballot.
As Boehner walked into the Cannon Office Building yesterday morning, some of his closest friends were telling him momentum was behind Blunt. Boehner survived the first round, but only barely, as Blunt won 110 votes, Boehner 79 and Shadegg 40.
"In the last couple of days, the conservative movement started to weigh in and encouraged significant reforms of the Republican direction," Feeney said. Most members kept their promises on the first round, "but obviously a lot of Shadegg and some of Blunt's supporters ended up going with Boehner."
Gathering his staff in his office after his defeat, Blunt told them not to spend any time trying to figure out the 15 or so members who betrayed him. Then he cited an old Hebrew song about how life is a narrow bridge and you can't be afraid to fall off.