Prophecies of angry Democrats not materializing yet

Among the many spiritual gifts on display this past week at the Legislature, the gift of prophecy was certainly prominent. Rep. Steve McManus (R-Cordova) predicted on the House floor that Democrats would have some explaining to do for voting for a Republican speaker. Clint Brewer has voiced some of the same concerns.

They could both be right, but so far anger isn't the emotion that is coming from Democrats.

In a talk to the Greene County Democratic Women's Club, Rep. Eddie Yokley (D-Greeneville) illustrates where things stand right now--relief, maybe even comic relief.

Yokley said that voting for Williams rather than Mumpower, who he said worked against him during his re-election campaign last fall, was "an easy decision for me."

He characterized his decision this way: "Do I want to support (Williams,) somebody I can talk to as a friend even though he may be a Republican, or someone (Mumpower) who doesn't talk to me, someone who came to Newport and Greene County and said how bad I was?"

He goes on...

Yokley noted that a handful of Republicans were saying Thursday that they would not accept committee assignments made by Williams. "That's fine with us; we'll take them [the committee assignments]," he added, triggering laughter from the Democrats at the meeting.

I don't think, at least for the first year, that this is going to be a hard one to explain to Democratic voters.