Hey, he knows the territory. 
As one I have to grudgingly agree. I’m not a Pelosi fan. I do think she was an effective Speaker even if I disagree with her on many positions. I think she’d manage working with a coalition that would have to be right of her personal positions because of it’s centrist nature. The experience is her best selling point as the Democrat who’d be part of that coalition.
Her biggest disadvantages in terms of the Reps who’d have to sell supporting it:
- she’s Nancy Pelosi
- she’s a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus
- she’s Nancy Pelosi
A Blue Dog would be a much easier sell. Of course that might be hard to sell on the far left.
That’s the thing. Any Republican that would vote for Pelosi as the speaker might as well switch parties the moment he does so, because his chances of re-election as a Republican would zero out immediately.
This would really work better if we had four or five parties in Congress.
Not really - the factional fights take place inside the caucus rooms instead of on the floor, but the process of compromising and deal-making is pretty much the same. In theory.
Pelosi doesn’t necessarily have to be the Democratic candidate for speaker. I don’t think you’ll find too many Democrats who think she’s all that and a bag of chips, even if we don’t have the weird visceral hate for her that many Republicans do.
This idea of mainstream Republicans casting a vote for some center-left Speaker is reeeeeeeediculous. No Republican in his or her right mind is going to do anything of the sort, and it is fantastically out of touch to even think it possible.
Does anyone need to be reminded of how many Republican politicians have lost their jobs because they were defeated in primaries by whacko bird candidates? And that the main argument against most of these Republican incumbents was basically, “Sure, he has a 95% voting record for conservative causes… but I would have a 101% voting record for those causes!!!” And that a majority of Republican primary voters found this to be a convincing argument?
One might as well suggest that the Republican caucus is going to go backbacking around Europe during the next congressional recess, smoke a little dope, have sex with a few hot Czech girls, and come back to DC bragging about how much cooler Europeans are, because they aren’t so uptight. No Republican politician is going to do that, and no Republican politician is going to vote for a Speaker who is center-left, center, Democratic, or otherwise would not salute the flag for Ronald Reagan and Jesus.
Then let the establishment Pubs not bluff, let them make that threat in earnest and follow through with it. It’s got to be a course of action more productive than what they’ve been doing or any other option they haven’t tried.
All the establishment Republicans will lose their jobs in the next election by threatening this maneuver.
Has nobody been reading the headlines where candidates with very questionable abilities to get anything done in government are leading the Republican polls? Trump, Carson, Fiorina – you think GOP voters are looking at these people and saying, “A-ha, they each have very reasonable positions, and I think they could work with the other side to break gridlock, produce compromises, and make government run more smoothly. I’ll vote for them!”
Gentlemen, you have simply got to acknowledge that this suggestion is just a slightly more clever way of saying, “I would like it if Republican politicians acted more like Democratic politicians.”
Pelosi is all that and a bag of chips, actually. And she had to be, to pull ahead of Steny Hoyer on the leadership ladder a ways back. She’s got the respect of the Dem caucus. Hoyer, I’m sure, would very much like to be Minority Leader now, so he could be Speaker if the Dems get back in the majority anytime soon. But have you heard the least hint of a challenge from him? No, you haven’t. That’s because there’s no fertile ground for a challenge.
Totally QFT. Any GOP Congresscritter who voted for Pelosi for Speaker would be signing his/her political death warrant. (Even changing parties would result in iffy chances of survival at best. How’d that work for Arlen Specter?)
To even suggest that, BrainGlutton, takes such a breathtaking lack of awareness of reality that I wonder what country you’ve been living in the last few decades.
Is it just as clear to you that a Dem who voted for a RINO over a Teahadist, as part of a voting *bloc *of Dems doing so with Pelosi’s support, would also face those consequences?
(re: Ravenman and RTFirefly’s comments) That’s also why much of the criticism of Boehner is near sighted. Sure the Tea Party caucus is not that large but that doesn’t mean he could just shove them around. Many establishment Republicans are under Tea Party pressure back home and have to look at least like Tea Party lite to survive challengers.
Indeed. Until Republican voters start thinking strategically instead of reacting emotionally, all Republican politicians will be at risk if they go “squish.”
It seems fairly clear from reports about Boehner’s resignation that the Democratic caucus tinkered with the idea of voting to support Boehner, instead of being faced with a new Speaker who will most likely be worse. It sounds like the Dems made the call that they don’t want to throw any Republican a life preserver. It isn’t clear to me if Pelosi made that call, or if that was the general will of the Democratic House membership.
I would say that Democrats probably are not as concerned about losing in the primary as Republicans are. The GOP mainstream fear of Tea Party radicals mobilizing for a primary campaign is omnipresent. It’s the boogeyman that is actually sleeping under every Republican politician’s bed.
But I can’t see that Democrats have much, if anything, to gain by sticking their neck out to support a moderate Republican Speaker. For as much as you have criticized someone valuing their job more than the national interest, that is most likely the decision taken by the House Democrats in deciding not to come to Boehner’s rescue (if Boehner would even want the help) should a vote of no-confidence have been held.
That would be neither appropriate nor possible; the TP has no LW analogue.
Two main reasons: A. The country would be better off in innumerable ways by having reasonably adult supervision in Congress, and B. The Speaker would be so much in their debt as to be beholden to them. Those are good things. The party-before-country view dominating today’s GOP does not necessarily exist elsewhere, as your anecdotes about the Dems considering exactly that attests.
One can only wonder what conversations were had, and how they went sideways. The Dems may have decided they’d be better off with a different (but still relatively sane) GOP Speaker than Boehner, or Boehner may have chickened out.
Like the saying goes, when your opponent is drowning, toss him an anchor. 
Anyhow, Steny Hoyer and Xavier Becerra are on record as having been unwilling to save Boehner, so it seems to have been the general will of the House Democratic leadership:
Gotta love that last Hoyer quote. It wasn’t on point, but I had to include it just because.
2 USC 8(a)
Except as provided in subsection (b), the time for holding elections in any State, District, or Territory for a Representative or Delegate to fill a vacancy, whether such vacancy is caused by a failure to elect at the time prescribed by law, or by the death, resignation, or incapacity of a person elected, may be prescribed by the laws of the several States and Territories respectively.
What is the Ohio law?
3521.03 Filling vacancy in United State House of Representatives.
When a vacancy in the office of representative to congress occurs, the governor, upon satisfactory information thereof, shall issue a writ of election directing that a special election be held to fill such vacancy in the territory entitled to fill it on a day specified in the writ. Such writ shall be directed to the board of elections within such territory which shall give notice of the time and places of holding such election as provided in section 3501.03 of the Revised Code. Such election shall be held and conducted and returns thereof made as in case of a regular state election. The state shall pay all costs of any special election held under this section.
So it does seem the Governor can set whatever day he wants.
In the Texas House of Representatives, there’s a similar situation - the current speaker, Joe Straus, is much preferred by the Democratic minority and they support his speakership. (That’s sort of how he got the job in the first place, and die-hard Tea Party types hate that about him, but it’s kind of complicated how he got and maintains his power and probably no one outside of Texas really cares.) But in a situation like Texas Democrats where there’s absolutely no plausible way that they’ll be in the majority anytime soon, the Democratic electorate is pretty forgiving of this.
On a national scale, I’m not sure it works the same way. House Democrats might not have quite the fear of a primary if they supported a Republican speaker, but it’s still a factor. Besides, they could wait and see how Speaker Gohmert botches everything first and then extract a higher concession to support a moderate Republican then.