We got a bit of a glimpse of the Republican Klown Kar in action recently. We saw two primo crazies duke it out, Gohmert v. Yoho. Louie "the United States will crumble unless I lead the House" and Yoho of the racist tanning bed tax thought process. Fortunately, neither won. Had they we might have had a really interesting upcoming 2 years.
A few other Klown Kar members also voted for other unrealistic choices (Paul and Sessions.) Many headlines screamed that Boehner beat back challenges. I think that he did nothing to beat back the challenges, just allowed a little time to let some of the less insane Republicans to see what their options were. (And apparently it took a little futzing with that first vote to "see" that Boehner had "won.")
http://www.addictinginfo.org/...
Some Republicans simply voted "present" but indicated no choice for Speaker. Boehner got in so now we have a glimpse of the Republican triumsimiavate knuckle draggers that we'll have to deal with for a while. Though, arguably, some of those knuckles drag lower than others.
But there was an interesting turn of events shown in the Democratic vote as well. That information follows.
Come below the orange cloud of Republicon Klown Kar laughing gas to see more.
Before the "election" for Speaker, such as I was, I imagined a few Republican dissidents, maybe 20) voting for Goatsemert and Yoyo to either piss off the leadership, send a message that the Tea Party was still alive or were demanding a more conservative agenda. wanted a more conservative agenda. I'm not sure if the votes for Rand Paul, Sessions, and others were meant to be funny ( staid Republicans expressing a sense of humor on a vote, one of the very few that they've taken in the last several years?) threatening to the leadership demand some some changes. If they were just expressing frustration at the poor start that they're having (Grimm, Scalise) or something else entirely. Or maybe some combination of the above.
But whatever the reasons, we have a record of their votes and abstentions.
But I found that what some of the Democrats did was equally interesting. I expected most of the Dems to queue up and support Pelosi. I think that it's important to present a solid image to the Republicans, that the Dems will stand ready, unified to work for what they see as being good for the nation. So I expected few non-Pelosi votes. Instead, I found that there were several reps who abstained, not voting for Nancy Pelosi and yet not supporting someone else either.
It is known that Pelosi isn't wildly popular in some Democratic quarters and that some Dems just don't like her for whatever reason. But, in spite of that, it might have been good to show some solidarity in supporting her. After all, chancer of her receiving the Speakership were virtually nil.
I perused the roll call vote for Speaker and these are some of the Democrats I spotted who abstained from voting in the election.
Tammy Duckworth
Kyrsten Sinema
Nita Lowey
Sean Murphy
Charles Rangel
Maxine Walters
There may be more, I just did a quick scan of the list of all the Representatives and their votes.
Is this signaling a slight shift away from following Pelosi's leadership? She doesn't get along with everyone and can certainly be sharped-tongued and controlling, when necessary. She and Steny Hoyer are certainly not best buddies, though Hoyer did vote for Pelosi this year for Speaker, as did the vast majority of Democrats. Of course a majority of Republicans voted for Boehner, too. But is that because they want him as Speaker of is it that they see him as a lesser evil? I wonder if something similar is going on on the opposite side of the aisle, as well. Are dome Dems signaling that they'd like to see a change in their leadership and, perhaps the policies of that leadership?