Speaker John Boehner’s future is the key to a lot of speculation in Washington about what will happen over the remainder of 2014. In particular, the idea that he’s ready to pack it in and move to Florida has enlivened hopes that he might pull off some theoretically suicidal coup to engineer the success of immigration reform legislation. If he’s voluntarily giving up the gavel, why should he fear having it taken from his grasp?
But now the Orange Man is talking down retirement, and says his political condition is in the pink (per TPM’s Daniel Strauss):
“I think I’m in better shape with my own caucus than I have ever been in the last three years,” Boehner said in an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer posted on Monday. Boehner has already filed paperwork to run for speaker again.
Boehner has had to shoot down some rumors that he might retire at the end of 2014.
Given the House GOP’s strong position going into November, we’ll more than likely see Boehner sitting next to Joe Biden behind the president at next year’s State of the Union Address.
