KEVIN CAN WAIT: McCarthy ends first day of speaker’s election on shaky ground.

It’s messy, and Democrats are mocking it. Of course, Democrats all voted in lockstep for the same guy. Maybe the GOP should tell them, “this is what democracy looks like.” Then again, the traditional approach would have been for McCarthy to meet quietly with the Freedom Caucus and promise them enough to win their votes. It seems like he could have done that quite easily — most of what the Freedom Caucus wants is popular with GOP voters generally. Is the problem that what the Freedom Caucus wants is unpopular with the GOP donor class? And, of course, it’s harder to make deals when there are “overriding trust issues.”