Big surprise. She's not going to follow form and resign. She's also not going to step aside from her leadership position. The words manic and self-absorbed are what immediately come to mind: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101105/ap_on_go_co/us_pelosi_house_leadership The Dems should do themselves a favor and get some new leadership. Heck, I'd drop Reid, too. Totally new faces for a fresh bid to regain power. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44752.html
What? Are you implying that the Democratic party has not swapped leadership after losing an election? You might want to do a random brows through Wiki. ~String
No the idea that one should get what one wants no matter what is what I was referring to. She is ignoring what the voters chose just like the republican did since 08 when they basiclly demanded for support that the republican platform be implemented
The issue is that typically speakers who lose do not challenge for minority leadership roles and then tend to resign quietly. Pelosi, egoist that she is, is not doing either. And this fits with her complete dissociation/realization with what happened to the Congress during her leadership.
Only if she had the moral compass and humility of Tom Delay. • Click here to read the indictment http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170681,00.html Now this is the definition of an egoist. Guess what, one year later his party lost control of the house due to the nefarious actions that were comandeered by the likes of him. Clean up the shit in your own backyard before... You know the rest.
So the objection is that she's offending tradition? It's up to the Dems. If they want to keep her as minority leader, then that's their prerogative. If that harms them, they'll regret it and if it helps, they won't. Can't really see why GOP voters would be offended either way. Meanwhile, she was just re-elected in a landslide, so expectations that she'll resign and slink away just come off like so much bluster and overreach. Frankly I hope she's around for a long time - it's pretty hilarious how the mere mention of her name drives conservatives into a foaming rage.
I am all for Nancy staying right where she is at, as the leader of the House Democrats, she has done a wonderful job so far.
That's not my issue, but it is an issue, sure. I don't really have an "issue". I just find it interesting that she does not want to step down, and it will be even more interesting to see what the Dems will do. I think if they have any sense at all, they dump Pelosi and Reid. So what? I mean, she was reelected in a district she cannot lose in and in which she has no real challenger. That result is hardly indicative of anything. And her decision to remain in office, despite losing the House, again flies in the face of tradition -- to say nothing of responsibility and what looks to be the sensible thing to do. Try Americans, not just conservatives. She polls incredibly poorly outside sunny California. Wanting her around seems rather foolish, too. She's a career politician whose leadership tenure has been fairly disasterous. She's much too far to the Left to be a national leader, partly because she never really has to stand for "election" and defend the things she advocates to an electorate that looks anything like America. At the same time, she constantly is able to funnel money to other candidates, which further distorts things.
I agree Quad. I find it facinating to see how successful limbaugh has been at demonizing Pelosi. She comes from a liberal district, but then there are a lot of congress people coming from some severely skewed right wing districts and states. I have yet to see anything extreme or untoward about Pelosi. She appears to have been a very effective leader of the House. Reid on the other hand, has room for criticism.
Yeah, a politician who wants as much power as possible. A shocking novelty, surely. You can probably see where your opinions on that subject have little bearing on anything. Anything except that her actual constituency overwhelmingly supports her, you mean? "Sensible" for whom? Not Nancy Pelosi, certainly. Good thing for her, then, that she is only answerable to a certain slice of sunny California to remain in office. As for her party leadership position, that's a matter for the Dems to decide. It's not as if she can just keep that post of her own volition. Disasterous for whom? Anyone that Nancy Pelosi or her supporters would be bothered by visiting disaster upon? Her "national" post (House Minority Leader) is one attained by an election amongst House Democrats, who hail from nearly every state in the Union. If she has their support, then I see no grounds to claim that she's unrepresentative of anything that she's supposed to represent. Recall that House Minority Leader is not a bipartisan, national leadership post in the way that, say, President of the United States is. The post in question is explicitly supposed to represent House Democrats, and nothing more than that. But, yeah, I'd agree that she's a non-starter for a post like President. That's federal party politics for you. If you don't like it, I'd love to read your proposed Constitutional Amendment to fix it.
As far as Rush is concerned, she's just a culture war cipher - a way of equating Democrats with some supposed San Francisco elitist liberalism. Bush was just about as useful for the left, upward-failing man-child of oil privilege that he was.
So we should just shrug and accept that? And while past speakers certainly also wanted to hold on to power, you're disregard that they didn't. They resigned. So doesn't that make Pelosi different? And if that's the case, is the difference a good or bad one? I think my opinions and your opinions and this entire web site's opinions have little bearing on anything, but that's not the point is it? We're here, voicing our opinions. And if you get drubbed, it seems logical to change the leadership, regardless what we're talking about. So she represents a kooky, gerrymandered district in California? So what? My point is that in no way, shape or form means she should hold onto her post. It's not like it was ever possible she would be one of the 60 or so Dems who were going to lose this term. To the Dems. I mean, if they want to keep Pelosi and her single-digit approval-rating, then they will essentially move nowhere. That's particularly helpful for them -- or for America. Which is my point. If the Dems want to say, this woman represents our caucus, then it appears they learned nothing this November. Or are believing their own PR about lack of messaging. I'm no lawyer, but we could start by banning political action committees run by politicians.
I agree that Pelosi should step aside. She may play well with the base, but the Democratic Party needs to look at the longer game, and in the longer game she seems to me to damage the brand. Fair or unfair, she's been painted as a crazed partisan loon, and she scares away politically active moderates (in the same way that Gingrich did after a while). They need to find some fresh faced leadership in the House that would be easier for the average non-Republican American to identify with.
