Nancy Pelosi -- Should she maintain a leadership position for the dems?

Is this sarcasm? Joe happens to be perfectly correct.

Cycloptichorn

I don't hear anyone on the right saying she should go (see Finn's post above). They seem to think having her in the role will help them next cycle.

She's a witch!

Whats wrong with you Cyclo. Cant you tell the difference between sarcasm and stupidity. The dems paid all kinds of attention to the repubs which is why they lost the house. If they ever develop some balls they may even get the house back, someday.

I happen to whole heartedly disagree. I partially blame the ineptitude of the Democrat Party these past 4 years on Pelosi's shoulders.

They rolled over for Bush's remaining two years since they grabbed control of the House in 2006. This wasn't an attempt at bipartisanship but lack of political will. And when Obama became president, they still allowed the Republicans to dictate much of the tone of Congress. Too much in favor of the right to be considered bipartisanship as well.

Pre2006 Congress when the Republicans controlled both houses:
Democrats: We need to compromise to get things done.
Republicans: We control both houses and the Presidency. We refuse to compromise on X issues.
Democrats: (ROLL OVER ONTO THEIR BACKS AND EXPOSE THEIR BELLIES) Fine. No compromises. We conceded to virtually every Republican agenda.

Flash forward to 2006:
Republicans: We refuse to compromise on X issues.
Democrats: We don't need to compromise on X issues we control the Congress....
Republicans: Grumble grumble....
Democrats: Fine instead of compromise on X issues we'll just give in completely and give pass what the Republicans want.

Obama has been elected to the Presidency in 2008. The Democrats grab a larger slice of both houses of Congress:
ADD Democrats: We don't need to compromise on X issues we control the Congress and the office of the Presidency as a conditioner....
Rinse and repeat with the above Flash Forward statement.

Nancy Pelosi is the Neville Chamberlain of the Democratic Party.

Sorry for the overkill metaphor.

I should have been clearer - I meant the right-wing of the Dems.

I guess they will use her as a fund-raising tool, but so what? They will demonize whatever leader we put up there, so why should we take away our best person, just in a futile attempt to stave off some sort of nebulous right-wing advantage?

I find the right-wing hate for Pelosi to be highly amusing. There's very little to actually dislike about the lady, other than her effectiveness as a legislator.

I also wanted to express my disagreement with the idea that legislators shouldn't go balls-out and try to pass big programs, even if it means their jobs. They aren't elected to do whatever is necessary to keep their jobs, they are elected to pass legislation that helps the country.

Cycloptichorn

I'm very much a liberal's liberal. She might be a great legislator but a sad sack of a leader which both majority and minority party leadership position is defined. She should keep coming back and writing and passing laws. However she shouldn't be allowed to keep a leadership position.

Bipartisanship is necessary for government to work. What Pelosi and her weak kneed peers did was not compromise and bipartisanship but sheer submission. With the rare example of the health care issue which was watered down too much to appear like bipartisanship but clearly wasn't a case of fair play compromise either.

Choosing their leader in the House is entirely the affair of the Democrats. They can choose whomever they like, and given the slightly more liberal character of the remaining Democrat congressmen, Pelosi's reelection to that post may seem indicated. However, it is my opinion that the Democrats would be well served by choosing another leader, who brings less adverse baggage in the public perspective. It certainly would not be at all unusual for the Democrats (or Republicans) to choose new leadership after a major setback in an election. Moreover her current deputy leader (Rep. Hoyer) is a good deal more moderate than Nancy, and, as a result may be more effective than her in dealing with the new House majority.

Alternatively the disappointed left wing Democrats may choose instead to renew the intensity of their focus on their agenda, despite the election results and retain Pelosi as leader. Their call.

Woah there! I think you are blaming the wrong person. Pelosi passed out of the House every bill that you could want, and in EVERY case it was a more progressive version of the bill than what the Senate ended up passing, if they passed a bill at all.

Pelosi didn't submit to the Republicans at all. The House passed the ACES bill. They passed Homestar. They passed HCR WITH a public option in it. They passed Financial reform which was MUCH tougher than the eventual senate version. I mean, what more do you want from the lady? The truth of the matter is that she is the person most directly responsible for Health Care reform passing, because - after Scott Brown's election last January - everyone assumed it was dead. Except for her, who kept pushing it and passed it and kept the momentum going. What exactly should she have done differently?

You ought to be directing your anger towards Harry Reid, who is far more responsible for the Dems rolling over to the Republicans than Pelosi ever was.



I'm sorry to say that this is completely wrong and totally inappropriate. Perhaps you could point to the bills or areas she 'rolled over' on. I can't seem to figure out which bills you were talking about.

Cycloptichorn

I don't know why you believe the Republicans are interested in negotiating in good faith with the Dems in the House, at all. They clearly are not. You think it would be better to have a weak-kneed an ineffective negotiator at the table, rather than a tough one?

This is what I mean about taking advice from the other side - it's rarely a good idea.

Cycloptichorn

Here's Yglesias on this subject:



Cycloptichorn

Just found this thread.

I read in the last few days that if Nancy Pelosi didn't run for minority speaker that a fellow from where? South Carolina?, a blue dog democrat, would run. I forget his list of reasons why but some of it, if I remember, was that a lot of the vitriol against the dems is aimed at Pelosi.

There was another article, one that I read only the headline, about how Pelosi's running will hurt Obama, who is busy facing (enough) problems.

Too bad I've no links, will post if I run across them.

Please do Ossobuco. That would be appreciated.

Here's a later version of the second one -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/05/AR2010110507192.html

Here's the blue dog link:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/blue-dog-democrat-for-speaker/

Is this what you are looking for? ---BBB

November 5, 2010
Not finished yet: Pelosi will run for House Minority Leader
By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that she’d run for minority leader of the House of Representatives, despite misgivings by some Democratic centrists who regard her as a reason for the party’s Election Day disaster.

Pelosi has been calling colleagues since Tuesday, when the party lost about 60 seats. Friday she sent Democrats a letter telling them that she wants to remain their leader.

“Our work is far from finished,” she wrote, and added a note of defiance:

“We have no intention of allowing our great achievements to be rolled back. It is my hope that we can work in a bipartisan way to create jobs and strengthen the middle class.”

Some Democratic moderates were unhappy.

“I will not be supporting Speaker Pelosi’s bid to become minority leader. … It is time to move forward in a different direction,” said Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C.

Leading the minority would be an abrupt change for the 70-year-old Pelosi, a Californian who’s been the speaker of the House since January 2007. In the last 22 months she engineered major legislative victories on health care, financial regulation and economic stimulus, with virtually no help from Republicans.

Democrats so far have won 187 of the House’s 435 seats in the 112th Congress, which will convene in January, with nine races still undecided. They’ll start next year with their lowest House numbers in at least 62 years.

House Democrats will elect their leaders later this month.

Several centrist Democrats backed away from supporting Pelosi during the recent campaign, as their constituents in conservative congressional districts saw her as too eager to expand the role of government, an image harped on by Republicans and conservative media, which demonized Pelosi.

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said after the election that, given the historic Democratic losses, it’s “time to shake things up.”

McIntyre said Friday: “I will strongly support and vote for an alternative.”

Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., has said that with Pelosi remaining as leader, it would be difficult to recruit moderate Democrats in conservative districts, and that he's mulling a challenge to her.

However, moderates appear to lack enough votes to topple Pelosi; many of them went down to defeat Tuesday, leaving a House Democratic caucus that’s more liberal than the one Pelosi’s led the past four years. Few think that Pelosi, a master vote-counter, would run if she didn’t think she’d win.

Brendan Daly, her spokesman, said the speaker had been calling “lots” of colleagues, and “many of them have urged her to run.” Pelosi, with a strong liberal voting record, has a good base of support among the liberals who dominate the House Democratic caucus.

“The fact is, Nancy Pelosi is the single most effective member of Congress, period,” said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.

Pelosi commands loyalty as a key architect of the party's 2006 comeback, when Democrats won control of both houses of Congress. She also gets credit for helping to steer President Barack Obama's agenda through the House, despite qualms among moderate-to-conservative Democrats and often their outright opposition.

However, she’ll face a difficult task in the next Congress, partly because she'd helm a party unsure of its direction.

One clue as to how far the caucus will inch toward the middle is likely to come shortly, as Reps. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., are expected to battle to become minority whip, the leader’s top lieutenant and vote-counter.

Clyburn, who's now the House Democrats’ highest-ranking black member as the third-ranking leader, is considered a liberal favorite, while Hoyer, who's now number two, has long courted moderates.

Democrats then face another hurdle: Because of House rules, the minority party has little influence on legislation.

Often the best way for the minority party to be heard is to court the C-SPAN audience by using the House floor to make speeches before and after the day’s main business. However, such efforts usually are coordinated with party leadership, and moderates are wary of too liberal a message.

Clyburn addressed the challenge Friday, saying, “While our defeat cannot entirely be attributed to a communications problem, I believe it was a significant factor.”

(Barbara Barrett contributed to this article.)


Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/05/103280/pelosi-to-run-for-house-minority.html#ixzz14Wflx6yK

agree completely

Personally the Democrats should have focused on the economy instead of health care. For Democrats it is always the economy. They should have focused on the economy and left health care. It was the lack of jobs that the Democrats lost on. Health care is the most difficult issue as insurance companies have a lot of money. The meltdown was best as Wall Street was on their asses. Taking two contentious issues was foolish. Clinton failed on health care. It should only be tackled with a huge majority without filibuster.

I think I don't agree with the 'not the chief legislator, should focus on maintaining majority' concept. The focus on maintaining a majority is the role of multiple folks, but only one is the chief legislator and that is a full time job. Stranger in a strange land that I am, I think it is a good idea to have legislation make sense to any people on both sides of the aisle, and the voters of the U.S., but that is a pie in the sky concept.

I like Pelosi, she's very good at what she does and I agree with her on a number of matters. This is a double sided thing though, as she attracts gnats.

Doubling down on losing bets is often very risky. I believe a good case can be made for the proposition that it would be in the Democrats self-interest (and pasrticularly that of the President who needs a mid course correction ) to get a new face.

I recognize that Cyclo assumes all "advice" from "the enemy" is dangerous. However, this isn't advice - just my best guess at what might serve their long term interests. Personally I would like to see Perlosi hold on to her leadership status in Democrat caucus. But then, I don't have their best interests at heart.

it is not clear to me that Obama wants to set a new course nor that he has either the stones or the power to make replacing Pelosi happen