House Speaker John Boehner is an emotional guy. His eyes were brimming with tears when he first assumed the speakership after the 2010 elections and he wept almost throughout Pope Francis’ visit to Congress Thursday.
Few conservatives will shed tears over the news that Boehner is stepping down as speaker of the House next month. Conservatives had higher hopes for the House majority he led than were ever likely to be fulfilled with a Democratic president and, until this year, a Democratic Senate. Despite first rising into leadership after the historic 1994 elections, Boehner never seemed to have much zeal for government-cutting or visceral connection with conservative activists.
Boehner was nevertheless an improvement over the earmarks-and-corruption culture that preceded him under the leadership of House Speaker Dennis Hastert. The growth of government was much worse under President George W. Bush, for whom many conservatives still have affection, than when a Boehner-led House held the purse strings. And if Boehner could never realize conservatives’ larger goals, he did often protect them from potentially costly miscalculations.
This feature, not bug, of Boehner’s tenure is ultimately why it was also so unpopular. Boehner will be remembered primarily for moving from crisis to crisis, some of them self-manufactured, always avoiding disaster but seldom achieving anything of lasting value to conservatives. Indeed, the resulting compromises and quick fixes often had little support on the left, right or center.
One of Bill Clinton’s favorite Scriptures was Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (he was less fond of quoting the second part about “he that keepeth the law”). George H.W. Bush called it the “vision thing.” House Republicans have not perished without such a vision, but under new leadership perhaps they could flourish with one.
