The battle continues for House Majority Leader, from Hotline:
Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi and political consiglieri Rep. George Miller spent the afternoon twisting the arms of colleagues who haven't expressed a majority leader preference yet. That Pelosi would be willing to stick her neck out for Rep. John Murtha astonishes many of her allies. A top union political official called it "amazing" and worried that Republicans might make Murtha an ethics poster boy the way Democrats did to ex-Rep. Tom DeLay.
Others wondered what would happen if Hoyer won... and whether Pelosi could best have shown her loyalty to Murtha and her fidelity to the smooth running of her caucus by simply staying out. Pelosi loyalists continue to insist that Murtha deserves the job and Rep. Steny Hoyer doesn't; that Murtha better represents the thrust of Democratic Party energy; that reports about Murtha's ethically challenged past and lobbyist-tied present are overwrought and incorrect; that incoming freshman need to know who's in charge. That last point unites critics and admirers of Pelosi. They see her endorsement as an experiment, of sorts, to test just how strong a hold she has over her caucus...
