吉姆·乔丹（Jim Jordan）已非昔日吴下阿蒙。这或许是众议院共和党人一段时间以来得到的最好消息。
Rep. Jim Jordan isn’t exactly the man he used to be. That could be the best news House Republicans have had in some time.
在中期选举惨败后，该党团于周二选出不知疲倦的乔丹担任新领袖。懒散的新闻界以惯常的肤浅标题迎接这一结果，大多概括了左派对这位知名俄亥俄州共和党人的鄙视。用来形容这位即将上任的少数党领袖的词汇包括：“好斗的”、“挑衅的”、“爱争斗的”、“斗士”、“攻击犬”、“强硬派”、“投弹手”、“执行者”。报道称，共和党做出这一选择，意味着将加倍致力于战斗、战斗、再战斗。
That midterm-shellacked conference on Tuesday chose the indefatigable Mr. Jordan as their new leader. A slacker press corps greeted the results with its usual round of superficial headlines, most summing up the left’s disdain for the well-known Ohio Republican. Among the terms used to describe the incoming minority leader: “pugilistic,” “pugnacious,” “combative,” “brawler,” “attack dog,” “hard-line,” “bomb thrower,” “enforcer.”The coverage explained that with this choice Republicans were doubling down on fight, fight, fight.
乔丹字面上和比喻上都是一名摔跤手。然而，标题忽略了他在国会近20年间所成为的更多面向。乔丹的战斗精神依然存在，这在民主党发起进攻的共和党主导的华盛顿将发挥作用。但正是乔丹的原则、人际关系——以及他的公信力——为共和党从中期选举的屈辱中东山再起提供了最佳机会。
Mr. Jordan is a wrestler, both literally and figuratively. Yet the headlines ignore what more he has become during nearly 20 years in Congress. The Jordan fighting spirit remains, and it will matter in a GOP Washington under a Democratic assault. But it’s Mr. Jordan’s principles and relationships—and his credibility—that offer the GOP its best shot at coming back from a midterm humiliation.
竞争本身就是共和党一个令人惊喜的良好时刻——与长达十年的领导层选举形成鲜明对比。在约翰·博纳（John Boehner）2015年辞职后，保罗·瑞安（Paul Ryan）获得强力支持当选，但此前一场混乱的保守派叛乱挫败了凯文·麦卡锡（Kevin McCarthy）的竞选。麦卡锡2018年竞选少数党领袖遭遇竞争，而他2023年竞选议长则历经15轮投票。
The competition itself was a surprisingly good moment for Republicans—a stark contrast with leadership elections stretching back a decade. In the wake of John Boehner’s 2015 resignation, Paul Ryan won with strong support, but only after a messy conservative rebellion quashed Kevin McCarthy’s bid. Mr. McCarthy’s run for minority leader in 2018 was contested, while his 2023 pitch for speaker required 15 rounds of balloting.
他未能坚持满一年。直到经历22天的立法瘫痪和多次提名失败后，共和党才敲定共识人选迈克·约翰逊（Mike Johnson）。相比之下，此次选举有两位资历深厚的候选人，均赢得了尊重和热情。乔丹战胜史蒂夫·斯卡利斯（Steve Scalise），竞争激烈而胶着，党团最终团结一致。
He didn’t last a year. Only after 22 days of legislative paralysis and multiple failed nominations did the GOP land on the consensus pick of Mike Johnson. This election, by contrast, featured two deeply qualified candidates, both of whom engendered respect and enthusiasm. Mr. Jordan prevailed over Steve Scalise, but the race was spirited and close, and the conference came out united.
这段充满纷争的历史，也是乔丹蜕变为今日领袖的故事。2015年，乔丹协助创立了众议院自由核心小组，将其定位为该党在财政纪律和有限政府问题上的良知。该核心小组对博纳的反对助推了后者离职。它使法案陷入僵局。它成功阻挠了麦卡锡2015年的竞选。2018年，乔丹与麦卡锡展开了一场激烈但最终以失败告终的角逐。
This fractious history is also the story of Mr. Jordan’s transformation into today’s leader. In 2015 Mr. Jordan helped found the House Freedom Caucus, positioning it as the party’s conscience on fiscal discipline and limited government. The caucus’s opposition to Mr. Boehner helped force him out. It snarled bills. It successfully blocked McCarthy’s 2015 bid. Mr. Jordan ran a hard-fought, though unsuccessful, race against Mr. McCarthy in 2018.
所有这些奠定了这位俄亥俄州人的“叛逆者”声誉。博纳曾赞同一位采访者的观点，称乔丹是“政治恐怖分子”：“我从未见过一个花那么多时间拆台的人。”许多人忽视的是乔丹所做的建设性工作，尤其是2018年以来的工作——这正是他本周当选的原因。2018年落败后，他转身与麦卡锡建立了战略伙伴关系。乔丹在委员会中推进会议优先事项，而麦卡锡在立法问题上与他密切磋商，并让他成为高风险任务的首选人选。
All this was the foundation of the Ohioan’s reputation as insurgent. Mr. Boehner once agreed with an interviewer that Mr. Jordan was a “political terrorist”: “I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart.”What too many miss is the building Mr. Jordan has done, especially since 2018—the reason he was elected this week. After losing in 2018, he turned around to build a strategic partnership with Mr. McCarthy. Mr. Jordan pursued conference priorities in his committees, while Mr. McCarthy consulted closely with him on legislative issues and made him his go-to guy for high-stakes assignments.
到2023年，乔丹提名麦卡锡竞选议长，并帮助说服了保守派持不同意见者。在此过程中，乔丹成为筹款巨擘，帮助摇摆区和温和派共和党人连任，并与新当选议员建立了联盟。他从保守派与温和派之间的桥梁，变成了整个党的领袖。他现在拥有斗志、原则和信任——至少目前如此。
By 2023, Mr. Jordan was nominating Mr. McCarthy for speaker, and he helped convince conservative holdouts. Along the way, Mr. Jordan became a fundraising powerhouse, helped re-elect swing and moderate Republicans, and built alliances with incoming members. He went from being a bridge between conservatives and moderates to a leader for the party as a whole. He now has fight, principles and trust—at least for the moment.
撇开个别政客不谈，这是众议院自由核心小组和保守派运动的关键时刻。近年来，共和党过分关注政治而非良政，这是由一个痴迷于选举博弈（修改投票规则、划分选区）并收买一个模糊的“民粹派”联盟忠诚度的特朗普-万斯白宫所驱动的。中期选举显示了这种做法的成效如何。如果共和党要重新拥抱乔丹派系长期倡导的原则，现在就是时候。这不仅对重建一个以改革为导向的众议院共和党少数派至关重要，也对为未来的多数派地位和一位有原则的2028年总统候选人奠定基础至关重要。
Individual politicians aside, this is a moment for the House Freedom Caucus and the conservative movement—and at a crucial time. The GOP in recent years has focused too much on politics over good policy, driven by a Trump-Vance White House obsessed with electoral gamesmanship (voting-rule changes, gerrymandering) and buying the loyalty of an amorphous “populist” coalition. The midterms show how well that’s working. If ever there was a time for Republicans to re-embrace the principles that Mr. Jordan’s wing has long advocated, it’s now. That will be crucial not just for rebuilding a reform-oriented House GOP minority, but for laying the groundwork for a future majority and a principled 2028 presidential nominee.
乔丹不是立法强人；他的长项在于监督。但他管理过保守派政策智库，了解自己人，他最好的选择是挖掘并提拔其会议中最具活力的思想生产者，将他们打造成共和党的明星。这不可能一蹴而就——尤其是在一代共和党议员认为他们的唯一工作是“羞辱”对手、并生活在推特暴民恐惧中的情况下。如果不将其作为头等大事，这根本不会发生。
Mr. Jordan is no legislative powerhouse; his talent is oversight. But he’s managed conservative policy shops, he knows his people, and his best bet is to tap and elevate his conference’s most dynamic idea-producers, turning them into the stars of the GOP. This won’t happen overnight—not amid a generation of Republican lawmakers who think their only job is to “own” the other side and who live in fear of the Twitter mob. It won’t happen at all unless it is made a top priority.
乔丹拥有的优势是他的保守派信誉——试想把一个“好斗的”“投掷炸弹者”说成是“名存实亡的共和党人”（RINO）。问题是，他能多大力度地运用其推销技巧，说服同僚解决美国人想要解决的问题——医疗、开支、政府改革、福利。还有，他能多好地利用与特朗普的信任关系，阻止坏主意，为其会议开辟出一条更光明的道路，腾出空间。
What Mr. Jordan has going for him is his conservative credibility—try casting a “pugilistic” “bomb thrower” as a RINO. The question is how aggressively he uses his selling skills to convince his crew to tackle the issues Americans want tackled—healthcare, spending, government reform, welfare. That, and how well he can use his trusted relationship with Mr. Trump to waylay bad ideas and carve out space for his conference to forge a brighter path.
乔丹的当选至少让“MIGA”这一口号的变体成为可能：让思想再次伟大。这早就该发生了。请致信 kim@wsj.com。
The election of Mr. Jordan at least raises the possibility of a twist on the mantra: MIGA. Make Ideas Great Again. It’s overdue. Write to kim@wsj.com.