Thursday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi claimed she had enough votes to reclaim the Speaker’s gavel.
The announcement reads like an attempt to quell a growing rebellion from younger Democrat lawmakers.
From the NYT:
Representative Nancy Pelosi asserted Thursday that she has enough support among her colleagues to become the next speaker of the House, as the first hint of opposition emerged from an Ohio Democrat, Representative Marcia Fudge, who said she is considering a run.“Come on in, the water’s warm,” Ms. Pelosi said, dismissing the notion that Ms. Fudge was a threat. Asked if she had the 218 votes necessary to win the speakership, she said emphatically, “Yes.”Ms. Pelosi is an exceptionally skilled politician, and many Democrats say she remains the odds-on favorite to return to the post in January. Her comments came as the fight over whether she should be speaker is heating up among her colleagues, exposing deep divisions over the role of gender in leadership at a time when a so-called pink wave put the party back in the House majority.On Wednesday, some of Ms. Pelosi’s critics — who have been pilloried as #FiveWhiteGuys on Twitter — floated the idea of putting another woman in the job, and named Ms. Fudge, a former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.Though many Democrats do not regard Ms. Fudge as a serious challenge to Ms. Pelosi, any opposition could complicate life for her, because a number of Democrats have said that while they are undecided, they have no one else to vote for. A bid by Ms. Fudge would give them an option. And more than a dozen Democrats have already said that they oppose Ms. Pelosi, who is from California.
As these things go, this is the best possible scenario for Republicans after losing the House in the midterms. Pelosi is a political character everyone on the right loves to hate.
So please, by all means, give her the gavel and microphone again.
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