I do not look forward to Peter King becoming Speaker of the House, but I do really look forward to John Boehner not being Speaker of the House and neither Eric Cantor nor Paul Ryan replacing him. We're not going to get much of anything out of a Boehner-led House, that's for sure. So, let's sow some discord and get a Republican Speaker who is dependent on Democratic votes. 201 Democrats + 16 Republicans gets us a tie in the House, 17 Republicans gets us a win. Frankly, King (presuming we get him to drop the anti-Muslim craziness) wouldn't do any worse of a job than Boehner, but if you construe this as simply messing with them, that's fine with me too. Let's take a day and mess with them.
I've laid out what I called the "Willie Brown strategy," along with the history of why I call it that, in this diary from three days ago, while most of you were off vacationing or something. The idea is: don't nominate Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, as highly deserving as she is, because we know that she'll just flat-out lose and we might be able to do something more productive than losing. Instead, nominate a Republican who will need Democratic votes to govern and who might thus take the very generous deal that we offer: Senate legislation gets to come to the floor, period. To me, that's worth picking some Cinderella and making them into a princess. And the effect on the GOP? Well, take what has happened to grumbling Dems in the NY and WA State Senates this year, where and when something like this happened in the other direction, and multiply by a trillion.
The important part of the diary, though, is a list of names: potential Republican speakers that the Democrats might push through as part of a deal to get our Senate legislation voted on and potential votes for such a Speaker. I'm now going to revise that list, highlighting those Republicans who voted for the execrable fiscal bluff compromise -- because those are the people who are now in the minority of their party, tied to the dead weight of John Boehner, and may be prepared to deal. We have less than a day -- let's make mischief (or even magic.)
(Again, for why we'd want to do this, see my previous diary, linked above.)
Read More