Trey Gowdy: The Face of Conservative Republican Leadership

John Boehner’s rule as Speaker of the House will soon be history. His replacement has been chosen: Kevin McCarthy, who just a fresh face soon to run into the same challenges.

The real change of interest in this Republican leadership shuffle is the position Kevin McCarthy just vacated — House Majority Leader.

Will the next Majority Leader help bring unity to the Republican party? Who could work with both the establishment and the tea party conservatives? Will the Republican-led Congress won in 2014 ever actually get anything done?

Several names are being thrown around for the second-in-command. Tom Price and Steve Scalise both have positions of influence in the House already, but they also issues that could undermine their effectiveness.

Over at the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza sums up the situation:

For a party whose last five years ruling the House has been defined by its inability to, well, rule the House, something needs to be changed if different results are to be reasonably expected. Simply shuffling the leadership slots among the same cast of characters isn’t real change.

We need a conservative Republican who already has influence in the party who can work with either side and get some things accomplished.

Trey Gowdy is just the man for the job — the representative from South Carolina who has been heading up the committee investigating the attacks in Benghazi.

He’s conservative but still knows how to get work done instead of alienating his colleagues. The American people are already pretty familiar with him because of his visibility on Benghazi reports. He’s a good communicator on television because of that role.

Gowdy is all the things Price and Scalise are not. He’s a regular — and a star — on Fox News Channel thanks to his job as chairman of the House select committee investigating the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012. He’s seen as the latest (and best) iteration of the tea party movement in Congress, someone who is committed to core conservative principles but is also adept at knowing which levers of power to pull when. (Gowdy is a former federal prosecutor.)

“If you want the best person to make the Republican case, if you want the best person to talk about why conservatism is the right answer for America, Trey Gowdy is our best foot forward,” Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz said during an interview on Fox News Channel on Tuesday morning.

Rumor has it that John Boehner himself met with Gowdy to encourage him to run for the position.

Most importantly, Gowdy has a credibility with “the hardcore tea party element” that none of the current leadership team carries. Putting him in a #2 position is not going to change the minds of anyone in the House, but that trust might change how willing both sides are to work together and get things done.

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