I am in the latter group. I think it is terrible for the Republican Party, because he is likely to be replaced by a person even farther to the right -- or someone who will continue to have problems with those on the far-right. Neither is good for that party. They will be viewed as even more extreme (and the American people hate extremism) or they will continue to fight amongst themselves.
It will also be bad for Congress -- because Congress will continue to remain the dysfunctional body that it has become known for. It will remain a body that prefers to play political fames, rather than a body capable of compromise for the good of the country.
Having said all that, I do believe there may be a small silver lining to that dark cloud -- at least in the short term. It could give Speaker Boehner the freedom to act on his own and prevent a government shutdown.
Boehner had promised that there would be no government shutdown. But things got out of hand in Congress. The teabagger congressmen on the far-right were able to include in the budget bill a provision to defund Planned Parenthood (which would hurt health care for many women). They knew full well that this had no chance of passing the Senate, and if by some miracle it did, would be vetoed by the president. But they did it anyway. They want government shutdown to please the teabagger extremists in their base.
This put Speaker Boehner between a rock and a hard place. He had only two choices -- break his promise of no government shutdown, or take the Republicans who were with him and join the Democrats to prevent the shutdown. That latter option would have resulted in a no-confidence vote that probably would have ended his speakership (because there would have been enough votes on the far-right to deny him a majority, and it is unlikely that Democrats would have voted to save him).
His resignation frees him of this dilemma. He can now appeal to Democrats to help him (and the anti-shutdown Republicans with him) to help him pass a budget bill without the odious Planned Parenthood provision -- and that bill would prevent the impending government shutdown. While the far-right would not like that, they would have no recourse against him.
Will Boehner now act to stop the government shutdown. I hope he does. The ball is now back in his court, and he can do that if he wants to keep his "no shutdown" promise. I think he will. We'll find out in the next few days.
(The caricature of Speaker Boehner above is by DonkeyHotey.)
I summed up my argument, The Next Speaker Will Be Like John Boehner The issue is that Boehner didn't act the way he did because he was a squish or a RINO. He acted that way because he had the responsibility of the job. Conservatives may be thrilled that he's going, but what do they think they are going to get in a replacement? Boehner is just as conservative as any Republican in Congress. But he was trying to further the Republican cause. Those who most hate him don't seem interested in doing anything at all. It seems to be all id, "I'm mad as hell and I don't know what to do about it anymore!" They are past "not going to take it"; it's like a special kind of learned helplessness where their entire strategy is to stomp their feet and complain that they don't get everything they want. And I don't even think they know what they want. That's certainly true of the base and its love of Trump. Are these the people who voted for Romney?! They are offering very different things. The one thing that binds them together is bigotry, and maybe that is the only thing that the Republicans have left. (I wrote about that recently, too: What the GOP Offers to Its Base: Bigotry.)
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