Sure, hell, why not? They don't think they have any power in the House Republican caucus, they don't think any Republican is a "True Conservative" except them, and House Republicans don't have any real power anyway, and won't until 2017 at the earliest, if ever, when a constitutionalist president like Scott Walker could hypothetically take office. So why not kill some time by shooting the breeze trying to kill the career of The Man With The Most Thankless Job In Washington?:
Conservative lawmakers are plotting to dump House Speaker John Boehner as soon as November, the National Journal reported Thursday.
The National Journal said forty to fifty House conservatives are behind a scheme to infiltrate the GOP leadership in 2015, and pushing the Ohio Republican aside would be the first step.
So this "coup" isn't imminent, it's not broadly supported, but it does appear to have some sort of logical plan behind it. Or, IOW, a sequel to last year's abysmal failure of an attempted Boehner-toppling by this same bunch with at least the more obvious lessons seeming to have been learned. Such as (1) these things take time to build support for; (2) don't be idiots and storm the palace in the midst of a midterm election campaign that your divisive mischief could screw up so badly that you might get to the Speaker's throne room only to find Nancy Pelosi already beat you to it; and (3) have an alternative Speaker candidate tanned, rested, and ready.
That last lesson may be more difficult to implement than The Gang Of Four Dozen for much the same reason they didn't have a unified candidate last time: Nobody wants John Boehner's job. Do I really have to take y'all through this again? He's got to somehow hold the line against Barack Obama and Harry Reid while at the same time hold off Tea Party firebrands who are long on patriotic philosophy and short on understanding of how congressional politics works. That is John Boehner's basic job description. Would you want it? I don't have a job at all at the present time, and I don't think I'd want it, no matter how relatively wealthy it would make me.
Perhaps with most of a year to prepare, they'll talk some sapish sacrificial goat into taking up Excalibur or Mjölnir or whatever "Fight! Fight! Fight!" symbol with which the Gavel is to be replaced. This, of course, presumes that Excalibur or Mjölnir consider any House TPer worthy of them, which could be a problem depending upon whether or not Arthur or Odin or Sarah Palin are available for magical programming purposes. I mean, if the Hulk couldn't lift The Hammer than I'm not betting the farm on any congresscritter being up to the task.
But assuming that hurdle was crossed, I could see a scenario next year where Peter King's RINO caucus (roughly twenty strong) undergoes a reactionary growth trend as the GOP civil war is joined in mortal combat provoked by a Tea Party purity jihad, depending upon how graciously conciliatory in victory the new TP Speaker is. Because remember, this person's true base of support would only be about a fifth of the House Republican caucus, and a lot of non-Tea Party conservatives - like John Boehner - might not take too kindly to being harassed and/or smeared as "RINO"s in infamous Ted Cruz fashion.
I'm not predicting that scenario. I'd much rather that a new Tea Party Speaker, with the strength of a crushing constitutionalist midterm election triumph behind him/her, seek party unity for the next series of battles between a unified Republican Congress and the embattled, defiant dictator at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. That way, if the GOP civil war persists, there'll be no question of which faction is continuing to wage it.
But then I'm not predicting that this planned "coup" will be any more successful than the last one. And I say that as a man who was no fan of how Speaker Boehner made common cause with Nancy Pelosi to bust the Sequester, or his periodic rumored dalliances with amnesty, or the parliamentary maneuver that his top lieutenant, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, pulled this week. At times, the House GOP high command has had ears as tinny as the TPers who overwroughtly condemn them. Which just goes to illustrate that nobody really is perfect.
The best outcome, and the one I think is most likely, would be for John Boehner to announce his retirement as Speaker after the midterms and remove the impetus for a "coup" altogether. It'd be best for all caucus factions and therefore the Party itself. And whoever wound up with the Matrix Of Leadership would have the strongest claim to be the true choice of all House Republicans.
And then the next round of disgruntled "coup" rumors could begin.
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