I certainly agree that the election won't directly affect more than, say, about a dozen votes across the country (total). But it will certainly affect the passage of legislation. From what I hear, when it comes to getting stuff passed (which is the important part, after all), Boehner was a good choice.

But like you, I really don't understand the idea that this will somehow affect the 2006 election.

There is a lot of talk on blogs that conservatives/GOP are discouraged by Bush and the current Congress and will sit out the '06 election, leading to gains by the Dems. I think this talk is overblown (more because the Dems appear to be in such dissaray rather than due to GOP strength) but it wouldn't hurt for Boehner to get some stuff passed to make voters happy (tax cuts, spending cuts, etc)

The fall hurricane season pattern and the relative effectiveness of any government response will probably have a far greater effect on the '06 midterms than any kind of attack on Boehner the Democrats come up with.

So now its only about image and public relations OJ? I thought you were the guy who said government was going to redeem itself.

Perry: OJ didn't post this, I did. I'm not sure I understand your point. I'm saying exactly the opposite from "it's all about image and public relations." I'm saying that no one outside the
Beltway could care less who the Republicans nominate as majority leader. We don't know who Tom Delay was, we don't know who Boehner is, and we're certainly not going to vote for or against our own Representative based upon whether the majority leader is Boehner or Shadegg.

Mr. Cohen;

So what if no one knows who Boehner is? I am confident that you don't know the name of the guy who lead the programmers that coded this weblog software, but he certainly had an impact on you.

The American Street won't know or care who Boehner is, but they will notice what kind of legislation and scandal comes out of Congress and vote for or against their Representative based on that. If you want to claim that the House Majority Leader has no effect on legislation or the behavior or members, go ahead, but that has nothing to do with whether normal citizens know his name.

Libertarian blogs are atwitter that the Dems will make inroads and mayhap win a majority in the house due to alleged nefarious "business as usual" activities by Republicans. Quote from, Vodkapundit: So it took them two ballots before settling on the Almost Reformer for majority leader? The House Republicans have no fr*ckin' clue how much trouble they're in.

Today's Instapundit has several posts along the same vein.

These guys are itching to get back into the fold with their natural cohorts on the left and are working the old ploy of covering what your pals are doing by accusing their enemies of doing the same thing, only more so.

It might even work if the Democratic leadership would go into detox, stop their deranged harangues against Bushco and listen to them.

Obviously, I hope the left is too far gone now change course.

AOG: I suppose I have to accept that, at some point, what the House does effects who is elected to the House, but it's a harder thing to prove than you might expect. The House bank scandal lead to the contract with America let to the Republican majority, but that's about it as far as drawing a straight-line from some action of the House to a change in control. All sorts of other things are more important, including unemployment, general perceptions about the economy, the President's approval rating (fall 1994 was the nadir of Clinton's Presidency), what programs have been passed by Congress as a whole and, most importantly, the price of gasoline.

Of course, the implication of your position is that Tom Delay was a great majority leader and that the Republicans were patsies to let a weak idictment by a Democratic partisan stampede them into changing the leadership.

I am concerned that the House will be stampeded into passing a reform bill on lobbying every bit as bad as CFR.

Mr. Cohen;

I would agree it's a rather indirect effect, but not negligible. The implication is that DeLay was a successful leader. But past returns are no guarantee of future results, so it does not follow that the Republican Party were patsies to dump him. We here constantly mock the Democratic Party for not adjusting to the times, so I find it hard to mock the Republican Party for doing so.

I do not share your concern. I am confident that some sort of abomination will emerge from the legislative process to "fix" the lobbyist problem.

Although I have discovered that it's fun to refer to lobbying as a core Constitutionally protected profession.