Boehner revolt fails

As I predicted last night, Boehner hung onto his gavel but just barely. Boehner only got 220 votes. There were nine outright defections and seven more GOPers abstained from voting. Three of the latter, including crazy eyed Bachmann caved after it was clear Boehner had won.

Admit I was half-cheering for the Republican rebels who could have pulled it off.

The Fire Boehner gang of more than a dozen aggrieved House conservatives could conceivably have forced Boehner into a second ballot if they’d organized and made a point of casting viable votes.

Certainly the Zombie Breitbart Brigade was promising a coup. Unsurprisingly they couldn't get it together without a leader and Cantor wasn't willing to take up their flag. As Erick son of Erick informed us this morning on the twitter: "It appears there were the votes to oust Boehner, but several of them have gone wobbly this morning b/c they can't agree to a replacement."

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi held her caucus together and garnered all 192 votes on the Democratic side. I watched the whole roll call. She was actually tied with Boehner several times and at least once was briefly in the lead before he managed to lock down his win. But for a brief moment I entertained the vision of a total GOP meltdown with Nancy winning the gavel by default. Impossible surely, but wouldn't that have been fun?