Scuttle: Minnis out as Speaker?

The cool kids over at Purple Oregon are speculating about the fate of Oregon GOP House Speaker Karen Minnis:

The conventional knowledge seems to be that unless the R's pick up a few seats in the House, and assuming she wins her seat, Karen Minnis is doomed to defeat as Speaker and destined to be dethroned so to speak. These rumors have only been fueled in recent days by the departure of key staff in her office.

This leaves loads of conjecture about who is jockeying to replace her. Of course Wayne Scott's name comes up, but maybe he's telling the truth- he's happy where he is...content to rule the campaigns and the purse strings, the real power behind the throne, or maybe the iron fist is coming down as we write.

The scuttle I'm hearing is that Minnis pissed off a lot of the righties during the last special session. Apparently they don't take too kindly to giving the Democrats pretty much everything they wanted. But Minnis had to moderate herself because of the challenge presented to her in this election by Rob Brading.

If Minnis wins, the CW is that she might be too weak with her GOP colleagues to stave off a new Speaker. As PO notes, it won't be Wayne Scott. Should Scott win (a likely but by no means certain scenario), he'll be in the role of puppetmaster, pulling the strings of whomever gets the Speaker job.

This is all speculation, of course. But what's a good political blog without rumormongering?