About Those GOP Leadership Races

Yet so far this is griping without a purpose.

Andy Biggs

of Arizona has floated a possible run. This seems designed to delay the leadership votes scheduled for Tuesday and give critics more time to mount a challenge. Others want to force Mr. McCarthy to cede the leader’s traditional power in naming committee chairs and the makeup of the Rules Committee, among other things. In other words, they want a weaker leader.

This isn’t a recipe for success in a narrowly divided House. If Republicans don’t want Mr. McCarthy, then find another candidate who’ll run against him, articulate a vision and process, and hold a vote. And then get behind whoever wins. Backroom plots to undermine the leadership, or factional hostage-taking on this bill or that, will play into the hands of the opposition.

Democrats understand this better than Republicans. Speaker

Nancy Pelosi

has been able to pass so much of the

Obama

and Biden agenda because she has the authority to reward and punish. Democrats also appreciate the power of unity. The Republican precedent is the Newt Gingrich majority after 1994 that held together its 230 Members to pass most of the Contract with America.

Over in the Senate, a handful of Republicans also want Mr. McConnell to delay a leadership vote until after Georgia’s Dec. 6 runoff, ostensibly so

Herschel Walker

could take part if he wins. Some 59 leaders in conservative groups on Monday joined that call, claiming there is no rush since the party “needs leaders who will confidently and skillfully present a persuasive coherent vision of who we are, what we stand for, and what we will do.”

And those leaders are? Florida Sen.

Rick Scott

was widely thought to be planning a run for leader, but he ran the Senate campaign committee that didn’t win a majority. No one else has stepped forward to run, perhaps because everyone lacks the votes. Social-media griping about the “establishment” is grandstanding, not governance.

Mr. McConnell is hardly to blame for the Senate loss, having raised and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to assist weak, Trump-endorsed candidates. We have disagreements with the Kentucky Senator, in particular his appetite for spending.

Ron Johnson

and

Ben Sasse

are right that the Senate should be a place for more debate and regular committee order.

But Mr. McConnell has been an effective GOP leader overall. He made sure

Antonin Scalia’s

Supreme Court seat stayed open through the 2016 election, and he maintained enough GOP unity to confirm three Trump nominees. We guarantee you that

Josh Hawley

could never have pulled that off.

By all means debate what went wrong this year, rethink some ways of operating, and elect new leaders if there are enough votes. But once the votes are over, Republicans will need to get behind those leaders or be routed time and again by the newly emboldened progressive Democrats.