In the wake of Tuesday's shellacking, outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, has been widely expected to step down as the Democratic leader and leave Congress.
Say what? Yeah, because all Democrats go fetal position at a point like this. Did John Boehner resign after he lost as Speaker in 2006? No. Hey, worked out for him, from what I understand.
Not so fast.
High-level Democratic sources in the House tell ABC News Pelosi is seriously considering staying in Congress and running for the position of minority leader.
Pelosi is methodically calling every Democratic House member who won on Tuesday, as well as many who lost, sources tell ABC News. In the process, she is weighing her options and gauging her support.
Some of Pelosi's closest allies are encouraging her to stay and to lead the Democratic effort to win back their majority. Those encouraging her are arguing, in part, that she can unify the progressives in the caucus, and more importantly, that nobody in the House can raise money for the next campaign better than Pelosi.
Ask yourselves why that is. Nancy Pelosi did her job, she got things through the House. It was Harry Reid who botched things in the Senate. He's the one who should be looking for a new position, not Pelosi. You need a fighter right now, not a surrender monkey.
If Heath Shuler wants a piece of Nan, fire away. He's just a catspaw for Steny Hoyer anyway, and I would take Nancy Pelosi in a heartbeat over him.
This is me, not retiring my Nancy Pelosi tag.
Heath Shuler should probably take a head-count on the Blue Dog caucus before threatening to do anything but sit quietly and await instructions.
ReplyDeleteWhat Allan said.
ReplyDeleteI remain a big fan of Speaker Pelosi and hope to see her back in that job in 2012.
Heath Shuler: crappy quarterback, worse congressman.
ReplyDeletePelosi is indisputably effective in the leadership role, which should be what counts. The reason the Blue Dogs want her out is because the GOP-Tea-Fox collective has so effectively demonized her -- in incredibly sexist and homophobic terms, I might add.
Hell, if all you had to go on were the election ads, you'd have thought the googly-eyed, reptilian crook who won the Florida governor's race this week was running against Pelosi, so often did he invoke her during the campaign.
That's what Shuler is afraid of. But as someone rightly pointed out on a Balloon Juice thread, the GOP-Tea-Fox collective will demonize anyone who's in that role, just as they demonized elderly Mormon, pro-gun, anti-choice Harry Reid as a wild-eyed Trotskite.
So let's keep an effective leader.
An effective leader who can smack people and piss off the GTF Party (thank you, Betty!)? Yesssss, please stay!
ReplyDeleteWow, what a great idea. A leader so effective she lost 70 seats. Sure guys, let's keep the least popular politician in America after she lost the House and gave John Boehner the largest majority the GOP has had since 1928. Just keep that up so the Republicans can run the same anti-Pelosi ads from this year over the next two. Go with a proven loser!
ReplyDeleteATTENTION NEW YORK TIMES READERS:
ReplyDeleteZandar is a complete fraud who trolls his own blog for readership. You have been taken in by his scheme and so has the Times. He has a long history of pulling stunts in order to gain attention. He has accounts to post "sock puppet" comments on his own blog in order to drive page views.
I have exposed his accounts in the past and he is still doing it.
HE IS A FRAUD AND A LIAR AND YOU ARE PARTY TO IT.
Tell the NY TIMES to STOP linking to this fraud of a blog, written by a loser who steals from better writers!
Are you quite done being stupid?
ReplyDeleteI see he still hasn't addressed being a liar and a fraud. Does the New York Times know he is misrepresenting himself and plagerizing other blogs?
ReplyDeleteThey do now. I doubt Zandar will ever make any news outlet again.
He brought this on himself.
Oh wow, it really, really burns you I got that mention, didn't it?
ReplyDeleteDamn, you're still pathetic.
Oooh: Spelling bee.
ReplyDeletePlagiarize: P-L-A-G-I-A-R-I-Z-E.
To quote the great Tom Lehrer: "Plagiarize -- Don't let a colleague's work evade your eyes!"
Just like counting other people's money, it's bad manners to envy another writer's success. Go and write something better and more original, and no one will have to listen to you whine about someone else's citation by the Times.