The Craziest Speaker Election Ever and Other Ephemra

There have been some pretty interesting elections for Speaker of the House of Representatives in the United States, but only one where the Congressional Mace had to be pulled out in order to be used as a potential weapon. We go over the 1849 election, as well as some other past speaker elections. We look at the question: Could a coalition of party members elect their own speaker. While technically possible, it simply hasn't happened since 1855. What about the 1976 election? Carter's win was so close. Many people said the Nixon pardon affected their vote? We discuss some other factors, including Reagan's primary challenge, Carter's electoral strengths and inflation to come to a conclusion that the White House was going Democrat in 1976 in any case, unless the memory of Watergate could be removed from voters' memory. Of course Democrats would only hold the White House for four years, before inflation among other factors would kick them out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices