Once upon a time, being Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States was an esteemed and quite powerful position.

For one thing, I never previously realized my hometown carried the name of the third speaker. Nor did I realize that Massachusetts had been the source of more of the officeholders, eight, than any other state. (In contrast, Virginia and Ohio provided the most presidents.)

I do remember finding family postcards of the Missouri mansion of Champ Clark, who was Speaker 1911-1919, and being told, in reverential tones, that one of my great-great-grandfathers had somehow been in charge of his affairs in this native state. Not that I’ve ever followed up to confirm the story. Maybe it was a cousin?

Curiously, though, despite all of its prestige, only one president – 0ur 11th – ever served as Speaker. That was James K. Polk, who led the House, 1835-39, before landing in the White House, 1845-49. In that election, he defeated another Speaker, Henry Clay. (For the record, Gerald Ford had been only Minority Leader before becoming president through Richard Nixon’s resignation.)

Looking back, though, the last reference to the position with any general air of full respect from both sides seems to invoke Tip O’Neill, 1977-87.

That’s three-plus decades ago.

For someone with the ambitions of Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan, these factors have to come into play as he considers Republican Party calls for him to run for the Speaker’s gavel. Even without the current toxic situation, it would add up to a dead end. Or, at best, a final step.

Let’s see how long reason holds out in the end.

Only weeks ago, I wrote on the longstanding seams in the Republican Party and wondered about their coming apart. (Here’s what I posted.)

Since then, in the dizzying developments in the party’s inability to name a new Speaker of the House of Representatives, along with the mystifying field for the presidency itself, it’s now possible to ask whether those seams have become tectonic plates – the kind that are about to erupt as a very destructive political party earthquake rather than simply ripping apart.

The so-called Freedom Caucus is being called the “kamikaze congress,” one that would rather see the Capitol blown up than do anything for the good of the country. The more moderate or more mainstream Republican congressmen, meanwhile, are awakening to the fact that their party can’t govern in its current state – whether they align themselves as a Reality Caucus with a core of moderate Democrats is making for some fascinating discussion.

As a blogger without insider information, I can only watch all this from a distance. Keeping up with the news, much less digesting it and relaying any conclusions, is exhausting. So here we are, following a big drama. Who knows how many acts there will be or how much figurative blood will be shed. It’s that, or comedy, but I can’t see anyone here laughing anytime soon.

Last weekend, at our town’s annual Apple Harvest Day festival, as I passed the Democratic Party booth in the array along Central Avenue downtown, someone mentioned that Rick Santorum was in the crowd.

“I’m not sure I’d recognize him if I saw him,” I confessed. Not having a television does limit my awareness in some ways.

“Oh, you’d know him if you saw him. He’s taller than me,” my informant said.

As it turned out, I did catch glimpses of the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania moving through pedestrian jam. It was his blue sports coat and khaki pants, mostly, that said GOP hopeful – or possibly, staff. Still, he was talking to an aide, rather than shaking hands and greeting potential voters. Could it be? What would I say? Or ask, pointedly? Besides, we were being carried along in opposite directions.

Later in the afternoon, at a booth where I was volunteering, I was given a business card at the end of a pleasurable bit of small talk. The next day, reading the news, I learned that this was Santorum’s host for the event. Little did I know that over breakfast just downstream, the candidate had received an earful from two Planned Parenthood supporters.

Maybe he’d had enough for the day?

~*~

As I’ve mentioned, our telephone’s been ringing with presidential primary campaign pitches. Some of them are robo-calls we promptly ignore. Talk to us in person, or else!

And then there are the surveys, sometimes several a day. Some of them are legitimately neutral, but others, well … let’s just say it’s quickly obvious who’s paying the bill.

Sometimes it’s a bit amusing, like the one from a first-time questioner working for the Carson camp. She stumbled through her script but had our sympathy. It’s how you learn the process, after all.

But then there was one that started asking if we were “strongly likely,” “somewhat likely,” “somewhat not likely,” or “strongly not likely” to vote for Trump, Carson, Bush, Kasich … and then suddenly turned to questions solely about Bush. Wait a minute! You claimed to be an independent research firm! What about the dozen or so other hopefuls on the GOP ticket?

At least this one wasn’t turning to a pitch for donations.

~*~

Considering the number of phone calls we’re getting from so-called opinion research outfits, I am concerned about the validity of the results. If a few people are getting the equivalent of “voting early and often” in the opinion sampling, what’s to preclude toying with the results? Why not say something that spins the outrage or anxiety? Why not boost a marginal candidate? Why not jump on a hot-air balloon for a short ride? Or try to deflate it?

More to the point: the only result I truly care about takes place in the election booth. Why can’t we concentrate on the issues until then, rather than the artificial horse race? (Or, in this case, elephant race, for the most part?)

Only months ago, most of us assumed that the 2016 U.S. presidential contest was going to be a cut-and-dry Bush versus Clinton. My, how things have changed!

Most of the news focus since then has been on the crowd of right-wing and further-right Republicans jockeying for position as king of the hill, something that so far hasn’t turned into a new front-runner each week, unlike four years ago – but let’s not rule out the possibility if, or when, the Donald stumbles. So far they’ve all appeared to be untouched by the party’s turmoil in the House of Representatives, but a government shutdown could blow away their posturing rhetoric when it comes to real-life federal spending. Some intense and bloody drama may be about to explode on their political stage.

The Democratic side, meanwhile, has been relatively quiet, with Bernie Sanders steadily building enthusiasm as he stays mostly outside of the news spotlight. Many others, who fear he’s too far left to win national election, are now getting jittery over Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails controversy before committing to her campaign. How damaging are the charges, anyway? For them, the possibility of a Joe Biden run is tantalizing, especially as he is cast as a centrist candidate – and likable insurance for the party in light of the allegations or other troubles brewing for Hillary. As Stephen Colbert says, Everybody likes Joe.

The one other candidate who keeps generating excitement is freshman Senator Elizabeth Warren, but she has flat out nixed running this round. But don’t rule her out of the calculations. Just look at Damon Linker’s argument on today’s online edition of The Week: Anybody but Hillary: The case for Biden-Warren 2016. He makes a fascinating case.

At the moment it’s possible to view this as a political marriage made in heaven, especially if you consider recent meetings between the two. Any thoughts?

The race for New Hampshire’s First-in-the-Nation presidential primary, currently set for February 9, has barely entered its pregame activities and already our phone’s ringing. Not just the candidates, either, but the surveys, especially – rarely does a day go by without at least one.

OK, some of the surveys are no doubt fronts for candidates or campaigns, but the frequency of the bona fide pollsters is also troubling. Ideally, the statisticians are sampling a legitimate cross-section of likely voters or, in an era of unlisted cell phones, they’re turning to a very small fishbowl regardless of its ultimate match. I fear the later.

It’s also raising the temptation of playing with the game itself. Say, with four registered voters in our family, we decide to tell everyone this week we’re backing X, and thus inflating that hopeful’s ratings, only to totally ignore X a week later. You can imagine how the pundits would react to the fluctuating numbers.

~*~

My larger concern has to do with leaving room for the process to actually occur without all of the Big Media tampering. Let the candidates meet the public without having hundreds of reporters tagging along – especially the intrusive television cameras and sound bites. Yes, I want a few journalists to be there for the unscripted moment that can enliven or derail a campaign – I just want the general public to be there as active participants rather than merely as an entertainer’s backdrop. That is, the journalists should be invisible rather than part of the celebrity-style entourage.

~*~

Well, one thing we do know. All of this is about to speed up. And how!