John Boehner, President Obama's leader in the US House of Representatives, was re-elected today with 216 votes out of 408 cast.
Twenty-five, count 'em & bless 'em, Republicans voted for someone else or present.
That's it.
That means that's also it for conservative representation in the House.
Out of 435 members, just 25 went to Washington to try to turn the 2014 Stop-Obama electoral wave, brought to you by We, the American people, into legitimate political power. The rest -- the dwindling Democrat minority and that largest Republican majority since the 1920s -- went to Washington to grease the skids of business as usual. Ergo, Boehner as usual.
Last week, I was just guessing when I imagined that Sweden was more fortunate than America in having 13 percent of its parliament held by Sweden Democrats, the country's patriotic party but I didn't realize by hos much. Now we know. The 25 non-Boehner votes translate into just 5.7 percent of the House held by conservatives.
What was that about every vote counting? Every vote except conservative votes, of course. If ever there was an argument for conservatives to leave the GOP, this is it.
For the record, from Roll Call, the roll call:
After Boehner and Pelosi, Florida Republican Daniel Webster garnered 12 votes from his fellow Republicans: Webster, Scott Garrett of New Jersey, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, Mark Meadows of North Carolina, Richard Nugent of Florida, Bill Posey of Florida, Scott Rigell of Virginia, Steve King of Iowa, Marlin Stutzman of Indiana and Rod Blum of Iowa.
Other Republicans who voted for someone other than Boehner:
— Louie Gohmert of Texas, Randy Weber of Texas, and Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma, who voted for Gohmert.
— Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Ted Yoho of Florida, who voted for Yoho.
— Justin Amash of Michigan and Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee, who voted for Jim Jordan of Ohio.
— Florida freshman Curt Clawson, who voted for Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
— Alabama freshman Gary Palmer, who voted for Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama.
— Virginia freshman Dave Brat, who voted for Jeff Duncan of South Carolina.
— Jeff Duncan, who voted for Trey Gowdy of South Carolina.
— Chris Gibson of New York, who voted for Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California.
— And freshman Brian Babin of Texas, who voted present, just as his predecessor, former Rep. Steve Stockman, voted at the start of the 113th Congress.
Don't forget this pair:
Matt Salmon of Arizona and Stephen Fincher of Tennessee were in the chamber when their name was called, but both sat silent. In the end, when it was clear that insurgents didn’t have enough votes to bring the speaker election to a second ballot, both voted for Boehner.