Democrat Shuler Wants to Run for House Speaker

You can put this in the wishful thinking department. North Carolina Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler says he wants to run for House speaker, Politico reports. Given that Republicans are expected to easily take back control of the House next week, Shuler might want to start thinking about 2012 if he’s lucky enough to hold his seat Tuesday.

He’s hoping to take over from current speaker Nancy Pelosi. “If there is no viable alternative, I will be running for speaker of the House,” Shuler said during a radio debate with Republican Jeff Miller, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported.

“I can do as good a job as anybody in the U.S. Congress because I can actually bring people together,” Shuler says.

“I can bring people together to the table to talk about the issues and not about the political structure and that’s what's destroying the whole process in Washington — the politics,” he adds.