Devin McNoodle had come so far. He had a dream – he wanted to be judged both by the color of his skin (white) and the content of his character debasement to do whatever it took to get what he wanted – to be Speaker.
Not since British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain agreed to let Adolf Hitler have the Czechoslovakian Sudetenland had any politician given up so much. To secure the votes he needed, McNoodle granted any potential voter within his own party whatever he or she wanted, even at the risk of diminishing his own power when he became Speaker.
But that’s when he found out that the more they get, the more they need, and every time they get harder and harder to please. They wanted to be committee chairs, all 222 of them.They wanted a Select Committee to investigate whatever they did not like, and they all wanted to be the chair, all 222 of them.
He agreed that each of the twenty House standing committees would have ten co-chairs. He also agreed that the Select Committee would rotate chairs per day – over the next two years, 200 would get to chair the Select Committee. He would call a special session so that the remaining 22 would get to chair it as well.
And still when it came time to select the Speaker, twenty of the bastards had voted against him by the third roll call. What did they want? Hookers? Cash? Both? What would it take? More groveling? He had done enough of that already. Or had he?
The next day when he met with the party caucus, McNoodle literally got down on his knees and begged, prayed, wheedled, cajoled, went through the five stages of grief, and ended up weeping, all to no avail.
He met individually with the twenty holdouts who consistently voted for the alternate candidate, Stanley Standin – not that they gave a damn about Standin, they just hated McNoodle that much, regarding him as a spineless wimp who would refuse to default on the national debt. Each one of the men accepted the offer of cash and hookers as they smiled and nodded. McNoodle was clueless as what it would take to persuade the three women. He was clueless about women in general, as both his wife and mistress constantly reminded him. He wound up sending the three women champagne and roses who just rolled their eyes when they got the gifts.
And still, at the next vote, all twenty cast theirs for Stanley Standin. McNoodle was at wit’s end. He threatened to resign the Speakership then was reminded it was not his to resign from.
So, on went the votes. Gradually, he gained votes until it ground down to six holdouts – the fringiest of the fringiest, the nuttiest of the nuttiest. His staff hung their photographs on his wall for him to throw darts at – Nat Bates, Bobby Badd, Lorry Burpart, Randy Biggschitz, Guildenstern Rosencranz, and Elijah Cranenek. His henchmen peeled them off one by one with offers they could not refuse that we are not at liberty to divulge, until he got the 218 he needed by the end of the year. Nothing got done in the House of Representatives that year.
So grueling was the ordeal that he had completely forgotten the rule change he agreed to that any member at any time could call for a new vote on whether he could retain the speakership. At least once a week, somebody would rise and call for the vote.
And that is why nothing got done in his one year as Speaker of the House.
Devin McNoodle had always said he wanted to be the Speaker in the worst way possible. And he was.
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