Asked to name his biggest political suc-cess, over a curry in the congressional chamber where he works, sleeps and plots the downfall of his party bosses, Mick Mul-vaney, a Republican member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina, is briefly stumped. There have been so many. The House Freedom Caucus he helped launch has made a lot of noise in recent months. That is in itself an achievement for a group of little-known congressmen, mostly elected in a flood of anti-establishment feeling in 2010, with a mission, says the Caucus's chairman, Jim Jordan, seated opposite, with curry, to "fight for the countless number of Americans who think this place has forgotten them." That mainly means fighting to stop the House Republican leadership negotiating with Barack Obama, whom many Caucus members consider to be a power-hungry socialist. They have therefore taken uncompromising positions on trade, public spending, abortion and other issues, at times depriving the House Republicans of their majority. The Caucus's willingness to create a budget crisis, in September, forced the then Speaker, John Boehner, to seek Democratic help to stop the government running out of money, a humiliation that cost him his job. That was the Caucus's biggest scalp; also a warning to Mitch McCon-nell, the party's leader in the Senate. "Mitch is next," says Mr Mulvaney.
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