Pelosi Not a Shoo-In?

A very interesting article in the Washington Times today about Nancy Pelosi's possible problems in winning the position of Speaker of the House if the Democrats win a Majority in 18 days. Pelosi is an unabashed liberal, and there still exist quite moderate - and even conservative - Democrats within her caucus. Some of them may not support her in a bid for the Speakership.

The nightmare scenario for Pelosi is that the Democrats win the House by just 2 or 3 (or even 1) seat. There are very likely enough members of the caucus who won't vote for Pelosi that the Dems could find themselves letting Dennis Hastert be re-elected to the Speakership, at least for a time. This is because the candidate for Speaker who receives the most votes, regardless of party affiliation, wins the Speakership. The Republicans are typically disciplined in their support of a Speaker candidate, so a split Democratic caucus would likely mean a win for Hastert.

That wouldn't be the end of the matter - the Democrats could regroup and hold another Speakership election whenever they were ready. The problem for Pelosi is that she likely wouldn't be able to get enough support from those who already were opposed to her ascension to the Speakership to win later. The same would likely be true from whoever opposed her on the Democratic side in the first place, probably Steny Hoyer (the current #2 Democrat in the House). The result? I would expect a compromise candidate to emerge from the caucus (possibly John Murtha, but he has his own issues).

One last thought: Hastert may have been damaged enough by the Foley scandal to have fractured the party unity that Republicans are so famous for. If enough Republicans refused to support Hastert, and if Hastert nevertheless insisted on standing for Speaker again, then he could be challenged. I suspect Hastert would still retain the majority of the Republican votes, but the challenger could peel off enough support to hand the Speakership election outright to Pelosi.

So, things are a wee bit complicated, and are likely to remain so until at least mid-January.