Dr. Johnson once opined that the imminence of one's hanging has a way of concentrating one's mind wonderfully. So do imminent election losses. Such is the case in Georgia's 8th Congressional District, where incumbent Democrat Jim Marshall, staring at the political gallows, has decided that Speaker Nancy Pelosi might well be the noose around the Congressman's endangered neck.
Congressman Marshall has declared that if re-elected to Congress ("Pretty please?") he intends to cast his opening day ballot for speaker for someone other than the ultra-liberal Ms. Pelosi. Mr. Marshall claims that he'll seek out a "centrist" to support, someone like Missouri's Ike Skelton, who's having election troubles of his own against Republican challenger Vicky Hartzler. And Congressman Marshall, tearing a page out of P.T. Barnum's playbook ("There's a sucker born every minute."), claims that his October declaration against Speaker Pelosi is the result of a long and - no doubt - tortured deliberative process that just happens to have resolved itself three weeks before an election that the Congressman is struggling to win.
Seem suspicious? Not if you're an incumbent Democrat on the ropes, like Jim Marshall.
Congressman Marshall's Republican opponent, Austin Scott, issued this statement upon learning of Mr. Marshall's reprieve ploy:
"After taking $46,000 from Nancy Pelosi, voting four times to put her in charge, supporting her agenda nearly 90 percent of the time and backing her Wall Street bailout and failed stimulus, the election-eve conversion Jim Marshall's making on his political deathbed doesn't exactly merit a 'Profile in Courage' award."
Desperate men, like Alabama Congressman Bobby Bright and Texas' Chet Edwards - both of whom are distancing themselves from the increasingly lonely Ms. Pelosi - rarely evince courage when trying to slip the hangman's noose.
Americans for Limited Government, a 501(c)4, is running a voter education project designed to publicize who congressional candidates are supporting for speaker. The Speaker Education Project is at www.speakereducationproject.com.
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