Once again, Jim Jordan's hopes of becoming speaker of the House of Representatives went down in flames today. In the final tally, Jordan flipped two Republicans from opposing him to supporting him and he also picked up a third vote from someone who was absent yesterday... but Jordan also lost four Republicans who flipped from supporting him to voting for someone else. Instead of 200 votes for Jordan and 20 Republican votes against, that adds up to 199 votes for Jordan and 22 GOP votes against. Or to put it more simply: Jordan is going backwards.

This does not bode especially well for Jordan. It really should be the death knell for his chances of leading the chamber. But we all saw Kevin McCarthy bludgeon his way to winning a vote after losing a whopping 14 times, so Jordan must somehow think the same could happen for him too. And Jordan's whole political persona is being a fighter -- he'll fight harder and stronger than anyone else, dammit! -- which makes the process of Jordan gracefully backing down look (to him and his supporters) like giving up and generally being a loser.

Watching from the sidelines, it feels like we are nearing some sort of resolution. It wouldn't surprise me if the Republicans came up with some sort of answer either just before the weekend or perhaps just after. We've already wasted most of three legislative weeks on this navel-gazing exercise, and frustrations are running high.

So I thought I'd run down what could happen next. There are a lot of possibilities, some more far-fetched than others. The first two might go on for a while before any of the others happen, obviously. Here are the things that could happen in the next few days (or even "weeks," perhaps):

Jordan keeps going, wears Republicans down, eventually ekes out a win. Just like Kevin McCarthy did, in other words. This does not seem very likely to work, however. But if Jordan's vote totals start inching up (rather than down) then it could become much more of a possibility.

Jordan keeps going, but more and more Republicans start defecting. This seems much more possible than that first one, at least to me. When they initially held a Republican conference meeting to select Jordan, they held a secondary vote immediately afterwards. On a secret ballot (where the whole world doesn't hear you stand up and register your vote), a whopping 55 Republicans said they would not vote on the House floor to support Jordan. Obviously, all the pressure Jordan and his henchmen brought to bear did some good (for Jordan) as there were only 20 and 22 votes against him in the first two rounds of public voting. But some Republicans are warning that now that Jordan's bid looks doomed, "the dam might burst" on the third round of voting, and there might be 30 or more defections.

If this is true (even to some extent), and if Jordan is a total masochist, then he should see his totals go further and further down with each vote he calls for. The only question is how long he tilts at the windmill before realizing the futility of it all. Which would bring us to the next option....

Jordan throws in the towel. That's a boxing metaphor, of course. I guess the correct wrestling metaphor would be Jordan slaps the mat and "taps out," but it's much less well-known. I mention wrestling because of Jordan's past, of course. Wouldn't you think that the Republican Party might be smart enough not to elevate someone to the speaker's chair who isn't a former wrestling coach accused of covering up sex crimes? It's not exactly much of an improvement to argue: "Well, unlike Denny Hastert, Jordan isn't accused of committing the sex crimes -- merely covering them up." As far as moral high roads go, that one is pretty darn low.

In any case (to throw another metaphor into the mix), "Gym" Jordan sees the writing on the wall and faces the reality that he's not going to be speaker any time soon. This would open up a whole bunch of new possibilities:

Make Patrick McHenry a real speaker pro tempore. The language which set up the job of "temporary speaker" is vague. It was written as a "continuation of government" measure (much like the 25th Amendment does for the presidency) so America could react quickly in times of dire emergency. But wouldn't you think someone thrust into power using such a provision would have the power to actually act? Again: the language is vague. It seems to point to the what is being called the "acting speaker pro tempore" being limited to only holding House votes on who is going to be the real speaker, going forward.

Others disagree, and say that because the language is vague, Patrick McHenry does indeed have the full power of the speaker's chair and can run the House just as if he had been elected into the job.

There's a movement to codify this by changing the rule. This would involve a bill being introduced that explicitly states what powers McHenry has, and for how long. Some want him to be able to only bring up crucial bills (like the federal budget), some want his tenure to have a built-in time limit (to force the House to choose a real speaker, while still allowing important work to get done), and some want to essentially make McHenry a "scapegoat speaker" who would assumably cut some budget deal with Democrats and then get vacated from the chair just as McCarthy was.

The Catch-22 in all this is: can McHenry even bring such a bill up for a vote? If he truly is limited to just holding speaker elections, then it would seem that he can't. But much like Gerald Ford's definition of what constitutes an impeachable act by the president, it would all really come down to what a majority of the House decided was OK. Republicans might bring up such a bill, Democrats might object to it being brought up, and then there'd be a vote on the objection (or some other convoluted method of getting a vote on: "Is this OK or not?").

Just elect McHenry speaker and be done with it. If the House cannot get a majority to agree that it is allowable to vote on expanding the speaker pro tempore's powers, then there is another route to essentially get to the same place. McHenry could be nominated by his own party as speaker, and if enough Republicans voted for him he would unquestionably be speaker and we could all finally drop the pro tempore from his title.

After all, this wouldn't be all that different than giving McHenry all the powers of the speaker's chair. If they didn't change the rule, it would still mean that any one hotheaded Republican could call for his ouster at any time, and if five or more Republicans voted to kick him out, he'd be gone and we'd all be right back where we are now -- waiting to see if anyone can get a majority of Republicans to elect them to the most thankless job in Washington.

McHenry could fend this off (at least for a while) in one particular way, however. If he announced (before he became speaker by a regular vote) that he would be putting Kevin McCarthy's name at the top of his list of "secret" nominees for speaker pro tempore (should McHenry be deposed from the chair), then it would mean voting McHenry out would automatically make Kevin McCarthy speaker again (kind of). That might be enough to deter the hotheads, but then again who knows?

Some other Republican coalesces enough GOP support to win the speaker vote. After rejecting McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and now Jordan, perhaps the Republican conference might decide to go with some middle-ground person who could assuage all the GOP factions into supporting them? It's certainly possible, and already some names are being proposed. If this does happen, it will likely only take a single House floor vote to achieve (rather than fighting it out in public again).

Democrats help elect a "power-sharing" speaker. This is the longest of the longshots, admittedly, but at this point anything could happen. If the Republicans truly have hit a brick wall where no one in their ranks can secure a majority of GOP support, then the more reasonable of them may begin holding serious talks with some Democrats to find a way out of the morass.

Democrats would definitely demand some sort of pound of flesh in return for this arrangement. Some guarantee that the legislative logjam caused by the extremist MAGA right could be unstuck, so that compromise bills that have enough bipartisan support to pass (such as budget deals sent over from the Senate) could get to the floor and be voted on. It wouldn't exactly be a "power sharing" arrangement, but it'd be close enough (I resisted adding "for government work" there, because it would really have to be: "close enough for the government to work once again").

Sooner or later, something's got to give. Even Republicans are slowly realizing that them showcasing to America how much chaos there is in their ranks is not exactly improving their chances for holding onto control of the House. Their dysfunction on full display is not exactly a good look for the Republicans (and there are many) who don't benefit and profit from such chaos (as the extremists on the right have always done).

The big question now is how long Jordan will keep chasing his dream of being speaker. More and more it is looking like the smart thing for him to do would be to withdraw his name from consideration and see what happens next. That way he wouldn't totally humiliate himself by getting fewer and fewer votes with each successive round, and he might come back in a few years and actually win the speaker's chair (hey, it worked for McCarthy!).

For now, however, the short-term forecast is for continued chaos starting tomorrow morning, followed by scattered internecine snarkiness. In other words: a repeat of yesterday and today.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant