The problem for McCarthy is that a significant portion of the Freedom Caucus is fundamentally anti-government, so they gain points with their constituents for being disruptive and creating a spectacle rather than for passing legislation.  There is nothing McCarthy can offer them that exceeds the publicity (and resultant benefit) they are getting by opposing him and shutting down all House activity.  So they have no incentive to negotiate and McCarthy has no leverage.  And the longer this goes on, it makes them more intransigent, since they do not want to appear to have caved.  They want to tell their constituents they "won."  They've painted McCarthy as the villain and do not want to appear to have flip-flopped.

At this point I'd say McCarthy has no chance of being elected speaker without Democratic help.  He's either going to have to make a deal with the Democrats or step aside for someone else.     

Jason I agree with your comments with respect to a small number of the 20 holdouts, but I still think a deal will be made.

As ugly as this has been, we're only on Day 3.

John, we're only on day three, but McCarthy has had almost two months to prepare for this, and it appears he fundamentally misunderstood his opposition and went into this week with no real plan other than to assume they would fold after a couple rounds of voting.  Now he appears to think he can buy votes with concessions, but I think there are too many people who are unwilling to vote for him at any price.  I think he will be lucky if he can add 12-14 votes via negotiations, and that there's probably a solid 5-7 people who will never vote for him (or change their vote to "present" to help him) under any circumstances.  Again, why should they?  They are gaining what they want by being oppositional. 

And McCarthy also runs the risk that if he bends over backwards too far and makes too extreme of concessions to get some of the 20 contrarians, he might alienate moderates who resent getting nothing for their loyalty.  There's a chance he might lose a vote or two that way.

I'm sticking to my prediction that the only way McCarthy becomes Speaker is by negotiating help from the Democrats.

No doubt about that.  But as much as the holdouts might be gaining PR points with the far right by being oppositional, I think they understand they would lose those points if the major concessions he's already made are lost because McCarthy ultimately has to turn to Democrats to get elected.  That's why I think at some point (if they are smart) they will blink.  

Democrats must also understand this. I think they are missing an opportunity by not already negotiating with McCarthy.  IMO, one of these groups is making a political miscalculation. 

If the MAGA holdouts end up resulting in a consensus Speaker, that doesn’t hurt them in the slightest with their constituents. It just proves their point that establishment Republicans are RINOs and part of the Swamp. 

That's going to happen no matter who the speaker is.  We're going to get 2 years of legislative gridlock and political theatre.  

The difference between McCarthy compromising with moderate Democrats or the far right will be which procedural rule changes get adopted.  An agreement with Dems wouldn't stop the investigations, but it could impact how they play out, and in 2024 when both sides are trying to appeal to a fed up and pissed off electorate, Dems would be able to say they tried to reach across the aisle.