IN THE SUMMER Of 2011, as Washington deadlocked over the once-routine task of raising the nation's debt ceiling, Kevin McCarthy, then the House GOP whip, decided to mix things up. At a caucus meeting, the California Republican screened a clip from the heist movie The Town, where Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner plot a violent act of revenge.
"I need your help," Affleck's character says. "1 can't tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later. And we're gonna hurt some people."
When the lights flicked on, Allen West, a firstterm Florida congressman, and Iraq veteran who had become a conservative hero for firing a gun while interrogating a detainee, rose to offer a version of Renner's response.
"I'm ready to drive the car," West said.
For McCarthy, his political ambitions have always come with a catch: To get where he wanted to go, he first had to hand over the keys. His elevation to speaker of the House in January on the 15th ballot was the culmination of his life's work and a demonstration of his powers. In nailing down a belligerent caucus, McCarthy leaned on relationships cultivated over a decade and a half on the campaign trail, at the Capitol, and on the fundraising circuit. But it was also a reminder of the compromises he'd made to get there. McCarthy won the gavel, but not the authority it traditionally vests, by ceding control to the insurrectionists and austerity-obsessed hardliners who blocked him 14 times. His victory was in many ways the story not just of his own career, but of the trio of Republican "Young Guns" with whom he rose through the ranks. If McCarthy is the last one standing, it is only because he surrendered long ago.
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