After a party loses elections as big as the Republican Party did earlier this week, both for the White House and Congress, a bloodbath is likely to follow: leaders will have to be replaced, those directly responsible for the defeat will have to be held accountable. In politics, making people accountable means firing them or, more often, them resigning.

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt, who is the number two GOP leader in the House of Representatives, said on Thursday that this is indeed what he will do. He will not run for reelection. Instead, he will make room for a younger, quite talented Republican Congressman Eric Cantor.

Although these leaders should indeed resign, one wonders in how far Cantor is ‘innocent’: he was Blunt’s deputy, meaning that he was quite an influential Republican in Congress. The Republican Party lost 18 seats in the House, meaning that all leaders failed to live up to their responsibilities.

Then again, Cantor and his supporters will argue, the rise to the top normally takes time; replacing leaders with their deputies makes sense for the deputies know the ins and outs of the game, while completely outsiders of newcomers do not.

Furthermore, these individuals argue, Cantor is a greatly respected and talented conservative Congressman. As such, he is expected to do fine as one of the leaders of the new Republican Party, which has to be created after Tuesday’s massive defeat.

Meanwhile, Rep. Adam Putnam from Florida also announced he would step down as Republican conference chairman, which is the third-ranking job for Republicans in Congress. 

At this moment, only one high ranking Republican Congressman has said he wants to keep his job: Rep. John Boehner (from Ohio). 

Boehner made his case for the conservative Red State blog yesterday writing that he “tried to lead by personal example in the fight for smaller, more accountable government, and I sense that we now have our greatest chance in more than a decade to renew that fight together as a party.”

Perhaps logical, for Boehner, but it could very well be that conservative pundits, thinkers, bloggers and activists will call for his resignation nonetheless. Boehner was, in the end, the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. The GOP lost 18 seats in the House during this week’s election. He was one of the main people responsible for the massive defeat. Calls for his resignation are likely to increase in the coming days, one wonders whether Boehner will be able to resist the pressure, especially considering the fact that there are quite some talented younger conservative Republicans who are looking forward to lead their party.