Tom Baxter reports on David Ralston: “I will not put up with backbiting, bickering & these intrafamily tensions very long.” -- I wonder what went on.

Tom Baxter, shown above with yours truly, is a former AJC Political Correspondent, reporter, Sunday perspective editor and national editor. He was and remains one of the best of the best, writing about politics in Georgia, the South and the nation since 1987.

I sure used to enjoy his contributions to the Political Insider and the AJC. In 2007 Tom took early retirement from the AJC and became senior vice president and editor of the Southern Political Report.

Tom reports on the House Speaker to be in InsiderAdvantage Georgia:

Returning to the Capitol from a food run during the long House Republican Caucus meeting Thursday, Associated Press reporter Shannon McCaffrey was surprised to see former House Speaker Glenn Richardson leaving the building in a dead run. She tried to speak to him, but as he passed her she saw, to her further astonishment, what Richardson was running from: Fox 5 reporter Dale Russell, in hot pursuit with a camera crew.

That scene of Richardson’s hasty exit from the Capitol – perhaps the last of his career – explained as well as anything what happened in the meeting called to elect a replacement for him.

Earlier in the day, Rep. David Ralston said that his election in the speaker’s race was a “message for change.” Some might argue over how much and what kind of change the House Republicans really want, but the election of the candidate with the fewest associations with the immediate past did make one thing clear. This caucus was in no mood to continue the sort of messy complications typified by Richardson’s speedy departure from the building a little later in the day.

In probably the most effective line of his speech to the caucus before the vote, Ralston described himself as “a pretty simple guy with a pretty simple life.” That seemed to be what the majority of the caucus was looking for.

Before the vote, more than one GOP representative privately expressed their concern over facing re-election if Ralston’s chief rival and the candidate considered by most to be the front runner, Rep. Larry O’Neal, became speaker. That was because the caucus voted unanimously in favor of the retroactive tax break, sponsored by O’Neal, which benefitted Gov. Sonny Perdue.

His appeal in Thursday’s election was also straight forward: What you see is what you get.

Ralston made a few brief remarks after he won the vote, but after the last leadership election, just before the caucus adjourned for the day, he came back to say a few more things.

“I will put up with a lot. I am a very patient person but I’ve already got the feeling that may be about to change,” he said in an affable, joking way. But one got the impression something had happened since the vote to prompt his remarks. He wanted to make it clear, he said, that he “will not put up with backbiting, bickering and these intrafamily tensions very long.”

Those “intrafamily tensions,” and Ralston’s impatience with them, could make the next few weeks very interesting.