“It brought us Paul Ryan! Hell yeah!”
The point is that their schemes and plans were interrupted, and they were pissed.
But you are correct that they had backup plans (see next post).
Their plan was for Boehner to retire and Eric Cantor to take over. But conservatives took out Eric Cantor, so Paul Ryan was next. And after Paul Ryan, we now get McCarthy.
Which is why we need SOMEBODY ELSE, to thwart their plans again.
That's my problem with too much of the "strategy" these days.
The goal is to piss someone off (libs, RINOs, the establishment, the media, etc.) and not much more. So you end up with a few feel good moments and no meaningful change.