House Speaker John Boehner has kept his post after a vote by House members in the new 113th Congress — but his title will belie the resistance he faces from within his own party. Boehner is now boxed in as never before, NBC's First Read team writes, just two years after he was elected to his post on a wave of tea party support. His party is split, with most of the House GOP caucus voting against the Senate fiscal cliff bill which he tried to corral them into supporting and which passed without their support, and he earned the ire of New York and New Jersey lawmakers on both sides of the aisle when he canceled a House vote on Superstorm Sandy recovery aid. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama emerged from the fiscal cliff battle with a win, even if just a short-term one. So did Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who First Read noted managed to protect his party and give it leverage to fight on better ground in two months, come sequester time — unlike Boehner.
