I’m wondering if this is Murtha for Majority Leader part two.
Remember, back in 2006 after the Dems took over, Pelosi was Minority Leader and Hoyer was Whip. Pretty openly, Pelosi supported Jack Murtha to run for Majority Leader, the position Hoyer wanted. The same basic dynamic. Hoyer beat Murtha.
TPM Reader EA:
I don’t get why Democrats would want to maintain the same leadership personalities in the House. Don’t people all around the country really really hate Nancy Pelosi and probably James Clyburn too?
Don’t we have any ‘young guns’ to showcase over the next couple of years? Doesn’t an even more ‘liberal’ minority leadership structure only increase the likelihood we’ll see the dreaded triangulation from the President?
Eeesh. This is moving quickly on the Dem leadership front.
Pelosi says she wants to be Minority Leader. Clyburn says he wants to be Whip.
The next person down the totem poll is John Larson as Caucus Chairman. According to Roll Call, Pelosi is encouraging (sub.req.) him to run for Caucus Chair again. So Pelosi moves down, Clyburn and Larson remain in place. So there’s no room for Hoyer. He’s standing when the music stops. And he’s got no chair.
The key tell here is that Pelosi seems to be encouraging the people down the totem poll to stay in place. So she’s blocking Hoyer’s ability to perhaps get Clyburn to agree to step down the ladder with him.
I think I remember this scene from The Godfather.
Folks up on the Hill, send me your emails on this one. We want to get every detail of this one.
If MSNBC president Phil Griffin is going to suspend every on-air personality who violated the company’s policy against making political contributions, we may be seeing a lot of new faces on the air. More soon …
Right after the 1994 midterm you had a bunch of Republicans come out of the woodwork with really wild eyed proposals on various policy fronts. And it seems like deja vu all over again. Newly re-elected Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) says states should be able to secede from the Social Security program.
Wonder how many Texans agree with that. And that’s not a throwaway remark; I’m genuinely curious.
Speaker Pelosi has announced that she’ll run for Minority Leader. That means that Steny Hoyer or is out or he has to run for the second ranking position in the minority — namely, whip. James Clyburn held that position in the Majority. And he’s just announced that he’s going to run for it again in the Minority.
So Hoyer either has to run against Clyburn or he’s out of the leadership.
Of course, another part of this story is that Hoyer is the more conservative member of the House leadership team. And a lot of his core constituency, more right-leaning Dems from swing states or conservative districts — was booted in this election.
Speaker Pelosi’s letter to House Dems on her decision to run for Minority Leader.