Kevin McCarthy is gone, but not forgotten. Particularly as he continues to take swipes at those who removed him from the one seat he wanted more than anything else – the Speaker’s Chair.
He’s been out there insulting Nancy Mace and Matt Gaetz, two of the people responsible for his ouster, and apparently he’s not content to just lob insults. As previously reported, he’s also planning his revenge tour against the party he said he would fight for.
READ MORE: Kevin McCarthy Planning ‘Revenge Operation’ Against Those Who Ousted Him
McCarthy’s team has been working on his revenge plan, which was first announced back in February by POLITICO.
A top McCarthy ally, Brian O. Walsh, is overseeing an attempt to recruit primary challengers to take on members of the infamous “Gaetz Eight” — the Capitol’s nickname for Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and seven Republicans who supported his fire-McCarthy push — according to six people familiar with the plans who were granted anonymity to discuss them.
It appears now that those allies are launching their first attacks in the form of ads being aired in the districts of the Gaetz Eight.
The American Prosperity Alliance has ties to the former speaker, and they are beginning to launch attack ads against several of those House members.
Good has a primary challenge from state Sen. John McGuire in his Virginia district. In South Carolina, Mace will go up against Catherine Templeton, a former gubernatorial candidate. And Crane, the lone freshman to vote against McCarthy, will face former Yavapai County Supervisor Jack Smith in Arizona. All three have been elected with significant support from groups that McCarthy helped fund, including the Congressional Leadership Fund and the House GOP campaign arm.
This is likely an opening salvo for McCarthy allies. The seven-figure buy will run in 12 districts total, but only some will see TV advertising and other will get only digital ads. The full list includes seats held by Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) — all of whom also voted out McCarthy — and Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.), Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.).
The American Prosperity Alliance has already spent “$330,000 against Mace, nearly $160,000 against Good, roughly $218,000 against Crane and $150,000 against Kaptur,” POLITICO reports.
Again, former McCarthy adviser Brian Walsh is at the center of the attack. You should know that Walsh has a long history of attacking Republicans. He worked for a while at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and is a creature of Establishment Washington if there ever was one.
While at the NRSC during the early Tea Party era, Walsh helped mastermind the Establishment’s attack ads against Ken Buck in Colorado. He also aligned the NRSC for Charlie Crist in Florida and Trey Grayson in Kentucky, as well as against Mike Lee in Utah when he launched his bid to oust Bob Bennett.
Walsh was also, at one point, a columnist for US News – a gig where he did not disclose that he was still getting paid by the NRSC to, as my colleague Streiff put it all those years ago, “carry water for Mitch McConnell… by trashing conservative organizations.”
So, when it comes to attacking Republicans instead of actually advocating for conservatism, McCarthy has himself a damn expert in the field.
But this is what we can expect from someone who spent his entire career climbing the social and professional ladders of Washington D.C. Being starved of that glory and attention is bringing out the worst in him. He’s like a desperate heroin junkie but with the ability to have advisers and allies with deep pockets (all of whom are encouraging his addiction rather than urging him to seek help).
I would like to tell McCarthy to grow the hell up, get over it, and just go home. I really would. But he can’t. He is incapable of letting it go and admitting that he gave away so many of his principles and so much of his power negotiating his way to the top that he had nothing left. He certainly had no allies among conservatives. He just had creatures of Washington, the consultant class grifters like Brian Walsh, to assist in his petty revenge tour.
It’s just very sad.
