Nancy Pelosi: Vindication in ‘12?

08 November 2010 |permalink | email article

The House Speaker’s assertion, after the political hurricane that routed her Democratic majority, is Congress had one of the most productive periods in recent times, adding Democrats have nothing to apologize for, nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing to regret.

Speaking with Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne less than a day before she announced she wants to stay on as the Democratic leader, Pelosi made clear she’s not ready to allow millions of dollars of Republican attack ads drive her from public life, and wants another crack at winning political vindication.

She’s philosophical about her use this year as a liberal political piñata, noting that for years the later Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was the clear choice, What was done to her, Pelosi says, “was almost chicken feed,” by comparison. She notes former colleague Martin Frost’s observation that a woman from San Francisco was the ideal Republican target. “I don’t think they could have done this to a male speaker,” Frost told USA Today.

Nowhere is it written that a speaker has to step down from a leadership position after losing a majority. Between 1945 and 1955, Democrat Sam Rayburn and Republican Joe Martin swapped the speakership four times. In light of Pelosi’s low poll numbers, she makes the argument rooted in justice to Dionne that a person who built their majority should have a chance at winning it back

What they said

“If a president has big majorities in Congress and commits to a bold and controversial agenda, he should stick to it to the bitter end, pushing the system as far as it will go during the two-year interval he has between congressional elections. Obama took his foot off the pedal after the first year of the conservative backlash appeared in the form of Scott Brown’s election in Massachusetts.” – Ryan Lizza, in The New Yorker, on the Obama agenda and the midterm wave.

“I think he needs to sharpen the debate on economic issues and show what repeal of health-care will mean to the average citizen. I think he needs to sharpen the debate on the recovery act…Republicans for two years campaigned against the Obama agenda while we were doing things. Their intransigence paid off.” – Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), up for reelection in 2012, in The Washington Post.

“When you look at Social Security, it’s broke… My kids, 27 and 24, they know this is a Ponzi scheme.”—Texas Gov. Rick Perry, rejecting any reason to dissolve the union but “if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what might come out of that.” 

258