With House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) “poised to succeed departing Majority Leader Eric Cantor in this week’s House Republican leadership elections, the race to succeed Mr. McCarthy is turning into a nail-biter,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The Thursday election will pit Mr. McCarthy’s top deputy, Rep. Peter Roskam of Illinois, against Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the head of the Republican Study Committee, a bloc of the House’s most conservative lawmakers. Fellow RSC member Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana also is vying for the position.”

Rick Klein: “The only voters are the 233 House Republicans, and the election combines some of the best and worst aspects of papal conclaves and student council races. The ballots are secret except to a select few, so expect deals and counter-deals, all predicated on rivalries based on who sits with whom at lunch — or at party fundraisers.”

“Idaho’s state Republican Party convention degenerated into a fiasco Saturday after attempts to disqualify up to a third of the delegates attending appeared to be succeeding – and the convention ended up adjourning without electing a chairman, setting a platform or doing any of it scheduled business,” the Spokesman Review reports.

Said Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID): “For three weeks I’ve tried to broker a deal to prevent what happened today.”

“Far from uniting the deeply divided party, the gathering degenerated into dysfunction — though it’s the party that holds every statewide office in Idaho, every seat in the congressional delegation and more than 80 percent of the seats in the state Legislature. It also proved not to be the finest hour for Labrador, whom many looked to as the healer for the fractured party just a day after he announced that he’s running for Majority Leader of the U.S. House; instead, he ended the convention facing jeers and walkouts from his own party members.”