I'm not surprised that Terry Coleman was elected House speaker. I did not expect the move to elect Rep. Walker to succeed.

There were too many cross-over Democratic votes needed. If the margin had been 3 or 4, Rep. Walker could probably have been elected, but a coup requiring more than 15 Democrats to vote against their party's candidate for House Speaker was really highly improbable.

Would you want to be one of those 10 or 12 Democrats who did vote for Walker, only to see him not get all the 18 or 20 votes he needed? Your next 4 years would have probably not been very productive, and you can forget about any good committee assignments.

I suspect too many potential Democrat Walker votes were afraid of their cohorts getting cold feet at the last minute, and leaving them twisting in the wind. It was a smart move by Perdue to pretty much stay out of this fray.

Tim Cottle
DeKalb County