Once again we have the conservative white male flank of the House Dem Blue Dogs causing problems before the Dems can even take over in January, and once again the race is on to "defeat" incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with...well nobody seems to actually have applied for the job. Never fear however, Reps. Tim Ryan and Seth Moulton are convinced that if Pelosi loses a floor Speaker vote (because she must be punished after...the largest Democratic midterm gains since Watergate) that magic will happen and a new champion will emerge, or that's the plan anyway if they actually had a plan.
What’s remarkable about the block-Pelosi play is that there is no Candidate B — no other Democrat has yet stepped forward to publicly challenge Pelosi for the post. According to a Democratic representative close to the effort, the idea behind the letter announcing an anti-Pelosi bloc is to demonstrate that she cannot win, and force Pelosi to withdraw rather than suffer an “embarrassing” defeat on the House floor. With Pelosi clearing the field, the theory goes, new candidates would emerge and the Democratic caucus would shake up its staid leadership ranks.
Moulton is not trying to become Speaker himself: “I’ve been very clear I’m not running,” he told Rolling Stone in June. The anti-Pelosi bloc is trying to recruit another woman to compete for the post. “There’s plenty of really competent females that we can replace her with,” Ryan told the New York Times. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH), a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, is reportedly mulling a run against Pelosi. “Congress needs a new leader. Period,” Moulton tweeted, backing 66-year-old Fudge: “I have full faith in her ability to lead our new Congress to its fullest potential.”
The insurgency has been brewing, quietly, for months. When Rolling Stoneasked Pelosi about Moulton and Ryan in May, she dismissed them as “inconsequential,” adding: “I have great support in my caucus. I’m not worried about that. And I’m certainly not worried about them.” In recent days Pelosi, has expressed “total confidence” she will regain the Speaker’s gavel.
Rolling Stone has been talking with both Moulton and Ryan on and off for the past year-and-a-half, seeking to understand their motives. What do these men want?
Ryan, who hails from post-industrial Youngstown, was blunt in his assessment of the Democratic Party this week: “We need a brand change.” He tells Rolling Stone that he wants a less coastal Democratic Party, pointing out the lack of House leaders from the middle of the country. “It’s a pretty large swath of the country to completely ignore,” he says. “How in God’s name do we expect to win the House, have a significant majority, hold it, have a party brand that’s connecting to people, and have nobody in the Midwest at all?”
In past interviews, Ryan has lamented his party’s turn toward political correctness. “We can’t have these purity tests,” he said, before listing a few key characteristics all Democrats should have. “You can’t be racist. You can’t be sexist. You can’t be homophobic — you’ve got to check those boxes — and then be economically progressive,” he said. “Other than that, we’ve got to be a big-tent party.” Ryan said he wants Democrats to come up with an umbrella economic agenda that can unify the party’s diverse coalition: “A robust economic message that all of those different groups could hear and go, ‘Yeah, you know, That’s me. I’m in on that.’”
Mouton has also voiced a centrist view of Democratic ideals. “It means someone who cares about the middle class, who truly believes that we are a nation of equal opportunity. That does not mean it’s a nation of equal results,” he told Rolling Stone. “We have a free-market system that we love and embrace.” Moulton seemed most concerned about America’s global leadership: “We need to talk about how to have a strong and smart national security strategy while Trump is being reckless across the globe. And not just complain about Trump, but talk about what Democrats will do.”
Moulton, in particular, railed against Pelosi’s leadership. “It’s not about ideology, it’s much bigger than that,” Moulton said. “It’s about having a vision for the future. We’ve become a party that’s just anti-Trump and doesn’t have any vision itself.”
Moulton was unsparing in his assessment of how Pelosi has managed the caucus — and in particular about what he sees as a lack of opportunity for younger members to advance in a Democratic House dominated by 70- and 80- somethings. “We need to have leadership that has the confidence to build our party’s bench, not discourage newer or younger or members from running or contributing… that’s what our party does right now.” If a private company, Moulton said, blocked the rise of young talent and “didn’t have any vision for how to take that company forward, you would never keep the same leadership.”
I don't get it. First, the Republicans have "younger, newer leadership" and they're basically a bunch of incompetent dipsticks. Paul Ryan will go down as the most embarrassingly inept House Speaker in modern history. Pelosi on the other hand is really, really good at running the Dem caucus as a united front, which is the Speaker's job for the majority party. It's one thing to say "Pelosi needs to go because we lost a bunch of House seats" and that vote failed. It's another thing entirely to say "We need to get rid of Pelosi because we won a bunch of House seats."
Second, nobody else wants the job at all, really. Marcia Fudge's name has been thrown around the most, and as a result Pelosi has done the smart thing and met with her on Friday. Fudge came away admitting that Pelosi asked her what Fudge's concerns were and how she could address what Fudge thought were problems with Pelosi's leadership, including Pelosi agreeing to only serve two more years while Democrats can decide on a new leader. That's the kind of thing leaders do.
Third, Moulton really needs to stop because at this point, he's coming across as a hater if not a Republican plant. Even Republicans were smart enough to have a replacement already to go, even if they were the incompetent torch-passing goobers that went from Boehner to Ryan to now Kevin McCarthy.
This whole fight is stupid, plus the media loves DEMS IN DISARRAY stories no matter how much of a dumpster fire the GOP is. Why play into it?
Oh wait, Moulton is pals with GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, who happily helped spew Trump's lies on the "caravan" of refugees before the election.
All starting to make sense now, huh.
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