Post-Abramoff Mood Shaped Vote for DeLay's Successor

John Boehner's election as GOP leader surprised even John Boehner. (By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)

A little over two weeks ago, Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) declared the race for majority leader over. He released a statement announcing that a majority of Republicans had pledged support to him. It was a publicity stunt, of course, an effort to turn an early lead into an invincible stampede. But he honestly believed he was on an unstoppable trajectory to victory.

John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), on the other hand, thought the claim was bogus. Camped out in a smoky office in the basement of the Longworth House Office Building, Boehner was hearing from dozens of disgruntled members of the House Republican Conference who were fed up with the current direction of the GOP and rumors that Blunt was trading favors such as better committee assignments for votes.

Boehner called Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to privately complain about Blunt's tactics, but he spent the bulk of his time pleading with Republicans to back him on the first or second ballot come election day.

Boehner's come-from-behind victory after two ballots in a closed-door vote on Capitol Hill yesterday was partly a triumph of maneuver -- the kind of deft insider intrigue on which leadership races always hinge. But it was also influenced decisively by outside events, as Boehner tapped into members' election-year anxieties about the GOP's scandal-scuffed leadership.

What Blunt presumed would be his greatest asset -- his links to the current leadership's system of power and favors -- turned out to be a liability. The day's surprise conclusion also positions Boehner as the most likely next speaker of the House, in the event that Hastert steps down after one more election and Republicans retain control of the House.

Boehner, who has extensive links to lobbyists, hardly represents a radical break from the past. He also triumphed over John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), who promised the biggest changes and an end to special interest pork projects. But Boehner's colleagues concluded that the Ohioan represented the right mix of change and continuity.

One person critical to the Boehner approach was Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), a social moderate who refused to publicly endorse a candidate until the very end. Thomas had signaled his unhappiness with Blunt's performance as acting majority leader in recent months, after taking over from the incumbent majority leader, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), who had stepped aside after he was indicted in Texas.

Sensing opportunity, Boehner talked to Thomas, a notoriously prickly and unpredictable chairman, every day, sometimes several times, until he secured one of the race's biggest coups in a face-to-face meeting on Tuesday.

When 231 members gathered at lunchtime yesterday for the secret-ballot vote, it was Thomas who nominated Boehner, calling him "a bridge" between the House's varied ideological and generational factions. In the end, he defeated Blunt, 122 to 109, in the second round of the election that many saw as a referendum on the direction of the scandal-stained GOP.

This article, which is based on interviews in recent weeks with the candidates, their supporters and dozens of rank-and-file members, explores how Boehner won an often bruising fight to become majority leader. Many lawmakers spoke under the condition that some material not be disclosed until the race was over. The information was confirmed by at least two sources or provided by a person directly involved in the episode.

Boehner, a perpetually tanned conservative, had spent much of the past year meeting secretly with Republicans who complained about the current leadership team, especially Blunt and his mentor, DeLay, and encouraged Boehner to launch a political comeback. More than a year ago, Blunt and Boehner discussed how they may soon be pitted against each other in a face-off over DeLay's successor.

In Florida, when news that DeLay was relinquishing the majority leader's position broke in early January, Boehner started calling colleagues from his vacation spot. He penned a 37-page manifesto calling for a new Republican direction and highlighted his career-long opposition to special-interest pork projects in the federal budget.