Mike Johnson's Tea Leaves

     House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to keep his job.  His party's bare majority in the House means he can't lose even one GOP vote* and word is that he already has.  Kentucky's Thomas Massie has already said he won't vote for the Johnson.  Right behind him, you'll find Indiana's Victoria Spartz in full maverick mode, and while I frequently find myself wondering just what she's up to at any given moment, her position of being a more seriously conservative conservative than all of her fellow conservatives, especially over fiscal restraint, certainly makes for interesting moves.

     With two holdouts and a certain loss, there's no reason for any other Republican looking to earn brownie points or extract concessions to hang back, so the whole thing becomes an exercise in party discipline for a party increasingly given to infighting.  Or possibly a kind of piñata, with everyone taking a whack and hoping goodies will fall out.

     The House needs to put a Speaker in place before the official tally of electoral college votes on January 6.†  They've got three days and the stopwatch is ticking.  They're not fast-moving even on their best days.  This will be interesting, and possibly a preview of the next two years.
___________________
* Unless he's got a secret best buddy among the Democrats who will break ranks.  There are probably several who'd be happy to have him stop by their backyard cookout, but votes like this are a whole other thing.
 
† My goodness, why does that date seem so familiar?