What makes Jim Jordan keep running

Inside his mind.

(Jim Jordan, still not Speaker of the House)

On Thursday afternoon, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan held a meeting with the 22 Republicans who had voted against him for Speaker. They told him, in no uncertain terms, that they would not change their votes and that he would never be elected Speaker.

On Friday morning, Jordan held a press conference in which he made clear he was planning to hold a third vote on his bid for Speaker later today.

“Our plan this weekend is to get a Speaker elected to the House of Representatives,” Jordan insisted.

Um, ok.

This would seem like a quixotic pursuit by Jordan. Reports are everywhere that momentum has stalled for his bid and that the likelihood is that he will lose more Republican votes on the 3rd ballot than he did on the 2nd.

So, why is he continuing to do it?

I thought long and hard about that question — and think I have an answer.

Consider what Jordan knows right now.

1. He is the speaker designate.

2. There is no one in the House Republican Conference who can get 218 Republican votes to be elected Speaker.

Which means that, as long as he controls the majority of the majority of votes, he is in the driver’s seat. He can continue to ask for (and likely receive) votes on his speakership for as long as he wants them.

The only thing that would keep him from doing this is his desire to avoid public humiliation after public humiliation. It’s why Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise bowed out before there was even a floor vote on his bid for Speaker — he knew he didn’t have the support of 218 Republicans and didn’t want to be embarrassed on the House floor.

But, if Jordan is willing to endure the public humiliation — and he appeared Friday morning to be plenty willing to — then there is nothing really stopping him from forcing vote after vote.

His best case scenario would seem to be following the blueprint of Kevin McCarthy’s path to the speakership — slowly wear down opposition over a long series of votes until you get to the number.

I’m skeptical that will work for Jordan both a) because of who he is (a hard right bomb thrower) and b) because of the tactics he and his allies have used to try to win votes from holdouts.

The last 24 hours of coverage of the race have been all about those hardball tactics — with threats being made to members who don’t support him. (Jordan has disavowed those threats and said the party needs to unify.)

My experience is that threats make members dig in further. It’s no longer about policy disagreements or concessions they can extract. It’s personal. They and their families have been threatened. People don’t forget stuff like that.

But again, from Jordan’s perspective, all he is risking is humiliation. If he can withstand that, he can keep running.

Of course, there is the broader question of what an extended series of speaker votes does to a party who, two weeks ago, ousted McCarthy without any plan on how to replace him.

To the extent people are paying attention to this (and I am not sure the average independent voter is, to be honest) the Republican party looks like the gang that can’t shoot straight, unable to pick a leader much less govern.

Concern over the political impact of all of this could, eventually, lead a broader rebellion against Jordan if he is truly committed to just trying to grind out the speakership through an unending series of votes.

But, we aren’t there yet. And Jordan, at least as of this writing, seems to be no worse for wear from the public humiliation of losing two rounds of speaker’s vote with a third coming hot on their heels.

Things, of course, can change in an instant. He could drop his bid after today’s third vote. But, if he keeps going, now you understand why.