Jim Jordan wonders: “What Is the real reason [people won’t vote for me]?”

This morning, it looks like Jim Jordan is going to force a third vote on his Speakership bid. It will, of course, fail. It will probably fail by a bigger margin than the second vote, which failed by a bigger margin than the first vote, not least because Jordan backers are doing things like issuing death threats to Members who won’t back him. Jordan allies are meanwhile signaling that they plan to keep the House in DC all weekend to force further votes, in which he will probably continue to bleed support. One wonders if this will end up with the GOP actually splitting into two parties.

Anyway, in the run up to today’s action, this picture was posted by CNN’s Annie Gray:

Per @Reuters this is the note Jim Jordan was holding as he left his meeting with the GOP members who aren’t backing him. One of the notes reads “what is the real reason” pic.twitter.com/quB8oBNngk

— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) October 19, 2023

This is Jim Jordan wondering “what is the real reason [people won’t vote for me]?”

This exhibits an extraordinary lack of self-awareness on Jim Jordan’s part, and also a fairly conspiratorial mindset. As if the combination of Members having death threats leveled at them by Jordan backers, Members not wanting to elevate an election denier, Members worrying about rewarding Donald Trump and/or Matt Gaetz so flagrantly, and Members worrying about Jordan tanking them through a bevy of headlines involving “Jim Jordan,” “Republican,” “sexual abuse” and “wrestling” were not real reasons they might not want to vote for him.

At the rate he’s going, Jordan is really risking burning the entire GOP to the ground. Granted, a lot of Republicans want this, but it evidences a real difference of approach and objective compared to a ton of other Ohio Republicans, even including J.D. Vance who is definitely no establishmentarian.