Hoyer Wins House Majority Leader Race,
Giving Pelosi First Setback

WASHINGTON —  Rep. Steny Hoyer emerged victorious Thursday after a bruising battle to win the No. 2 House leadership post in the 110th Congress.

Hoyer defeated Rep. John Murtha, who had the backing of House Speaker-nominee Nancy Pelosi to be her chief deputy when Democrats take back the House in January.

The success is a setback for Pelosi, who had faced her first leadership challenge by tossing aside her current deputy, with whom she had a chilly relationship, in favor of her longtime ally. Pelosi had been nominated earlier in the day to be the Democratic nominee for House speaker, the first woman to become second in line in succession for the presidency.

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Murtha to Redeploy from Leadership Battle

(2006-11-16) -- With the battle for House Majority Leader threatening to spark “civil war” within the Democrat party, one of the combatants, Rep. Jack Murtha, D-PA, today announced a new victory strategy designed to “win the peace.” ...

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Hoyer humiliates Pelosi, defeats Murtha, 149-86
Allahpundit

... Update: Unless there was some eleventh-hour shift to Hoyer — which is unlikely, considering that 90 Democrats had already publicly committed to him yesterday — then Murtha lied to Matthews’s face on Hardball yesterday.

Update: Welcome the new majority leader!

Murtha was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam scandal of the 1970s, which has prompted some to support the other man seeking the House majority leader’s job — Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland — as the more ethical candidate.

Hoyer, also on appropriations, sent $61.7 million to his district just outside of Washington during this Congress, the watchdog group says. That put him among the top 10% of earmarkers in the House. The earmarks frequently benefited local defense contractors. ...

Update: How high were the stakes? The New York Observer’s Politicker blog posted this before the vote:

The damage could be significant if she loses. Forget the public relations angle - this is a woman who has had a remarkably strong hold on the Democratic Caucus, despite the best efforts of her foes (internal and external) to undermine her. But this looks very petty and very personal– a grudge being carried out against a man, Hoyer, who Pelosi simply doesn’t trust and doesn’t like. And that could weaken her support structure within the Democratic caucus, whose ranks she has now divided just days after their stunning win at the polls…

[I]f she does pull out a win for Murtha this morning, she will take the Speaker’s gavel with unparalleled and unquestioned power, the strongest Speaker the House has seen in years. And she’ll have delivered one final, lasting blow to Hoyer - the man she first met 40-something years ago, when they both interned for Maryland Senator Daniel Brewster.

Update: ...

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Buckle up. Here we go...
update: Murtha has been redeployed
Michelle Malkin

... Pelosi's in. Now, NRO's Jonathan Martin (terrific addition to The Corner) reports, the voting for Majority Leader has commenced. He's filing from the Capitol:

The nominating speeches are over, and House Democrats are voting now to choose their new Majority Leader.

For Rep. John Murtha, nominators included incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Kendrick Meek (FL) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (OH).

For Steny Hoyer, it was Rep's Henry Waxman (CA), Elijah Cummings (MD), Dennis Cardoza (CA) and Brad Ellsworth (IN).

Murtha, the more conservative of the two, chose Pelosi and two liberals to assumedly testify to his true-blue bona fides, while Hoyer offered a mix of moderate (Cardoza and Ellsworth) and liberal (Waxman and Cummings).

Allah: "Standby for the exciting, party-splitting, Pelosi-humiliating conclusion!"

Update: Let the humiliation begin--Hoyer beats Murtha, 149-86. ...

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Video: Pelosi, Hoyer, Murtha make nice
Allahpundit

Two things to watch for here. First, Pelosi pausing — twice — while praising Murtha for applause that doesn’t come. And second, Murtha’s little verbal slip at the end. You’ll know it when you hear it.

Says the Observer:

Had she simply announced her preference for Murtha and stood on the sidelines, Hoyer’s win would mean nothing.

But by turning up the heat on her fellow Democrats only to lose lopsidedly, Pelosi may have empowered Hoyer, her longtime foe. Should some similar impasse occur in the future - whether over a leadership position or an actual policy item - Hoyer may have considerably more standing in convincing members that it’s okay to stick with him against the Speaker.

One of the posters at Red State mourns Murtha’s loss and the corruption scandals his leadership would have brought. I doubt it would have played out that way. For one thing, no one’s touched him in the 26 years since Abscam; if he’s dirty, he’s good at covering it up. For another thing, any DOJ investigation into corruption would have been parried with accusations that Bush was trying to crush his dissent about the war. Unless they had smoking-gun evidence on him, they probably wouldn’t want to risk the political heat.

Anyway. Byron York asks a question he already knows the answer to: “Does the new Democratic leadership in the House have a clue about what to do in Iraq?” And here’s a question of my own: do they know that Bill Clinton opposes a timetable for withdrawal? ...