Nancy Pelosi may stay as Democratic Leader

[Icarus27k]

It's big news, of course, because whenever a party loses, it's customary for the leader to retire. The last House Speaker who stayed on after a loss was Democrat Sam Rayburn, whose party lost 55 seats in 1946, but then won the majority again in 1948. Anyway here's the story on Pelosi.

In the Wake of Tuesday's Shellacking, Nancy Pelosi Will Likely Remain in Congress and in Leadership - ABC News

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.

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.

Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC), a member of the conservative Democratic Blue Dog coalition, is urging Pelosi not to run and threatening to challenge her if she does. Another member of the Blue Dog coalition, Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT), told Politico that Pelosi should not stay on.

"We just got whupped," he said.

But the Blue Dog coalition was decimated on Tuesday; more than half of its members, 29, lost. Only 28 remain. For the most part, the Democrats who survived Tuesday are the more liberal members, including Pelosi's strongest supporters.
A more serious threat to Pelosi would come from Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), currently the number two Democrat in the House. But Hoyer has previously assured Pelosi – publicly and privately – that he will not run against her. Pelosi and Hoyer had a one-on-one meeting late yesterday that lasted more than 90 minutes. Neither of them will say what was discussed.




I say go for it.

 

[Walter]

Right now she's a lame duck, in January she'll be a dead duck.

 

[gopher]

Pelosi is the reason why Dems lost - she's the biggest loser in that party's history.

 

[YukonJack]

Pelosi is the reason why Dems lost - she's the biggest loser in that party's history.

I remember the time when Pelosi took the gavel from the Republican Speaker in 2007.

Until the time that I saw my two-year-old grand daughter's eyes light up upon receiving a gift, I never saw such an immature and childish joy at a power grab.

This pathetic creature (and some dares to call Christine O'Donnell a witch) deserved exactly what she got.

 

[mentalfloss]

Lame Pelosi is lame.

 

[wulfie68]

The Democrats, under Pelosi's leadership have proved to be startlingly ineffectual at getting anything done. Part of that is the nature of their party, especially when you compare it to the way the Republicans seem to close ranks and tow the party line (much like Canadian parties), but Pelosi's leadership has to be an issue as well. She has managed to let the GOP continually outmaneuver her, stall the agenda of the Democrats and make her look stupid. Considering how inept the Republican leadership has been, thats quite a feat.

 

[EagleSmack]

The Democrats, under Pelosi's leadership have proved to be startlingly ineffectual at getting anything done. Part of that is the nature of their party, especially when you compare it to the way the Republicans seem to close ranks and tow the party line (much like Canadian parties), but Pelosi's leadership has to be an issue as well. She has managed to let the GOP continually outmaneuver her, stall the agenda of the Democrats and make her look stupid. Considering how inept the Republican leadership has been, thats quite a feat.

I am amazed at how quickly the Democrat tide was rolled back. For the last two years the Dems could have done whatever they wanted and they managed to let a dying GOP back in the game.

 

[Icarus27k]

The Democrats, under Pelosi's leadership have proved to be startlingly ineffectual at getting anything done. Part of that is the nature of their party, especially when you compare it to the way the Republicans seem to close ranks and tow the party line (much like Canadian parties), but Pelosi's leadership has to be an issue as well. She has managed to let the GOP continually outmaneuver her, stall the agenda of the Democrats and make her look stupid. Considering how inept the Republican leadership has been, thats quite a feat.

I don't know if you were watching the same Congress I was, but under Pelosi's leadership, the House has been the most productive I've seen it in my lifetime.

Furthermore, the idea that Republicans are the ones that can close ranks and tow the party line is a little silly. It seems that it's more of a matter of the minority party being able to close ranks better than the majority party. During 2002-06, the Pelosi-led Dems voted en masse all the time.

 

[EagleSmack]

I don't know if you were watching the same Congress I was, but under Pelosi's leadership, the House has been the most productive I've seen it in my lifetime.

If driving the deficit skywards and increasing spending is considered productive...then you're right.

 

[DurkaDurka]

Nancy Pelosi is a babe, I look forward to her upcoming spread in Geriatric Hustler.

 

[YukonJack]

DurkaDurka, Pelosi may or may not have been a babe about 150 years ago, but now she is too old and ugly even for the most advanced and politically correct geriatric publications.

 

[DurkaDurka]

DurkaDurka, Pelosi may or may not have been a babe about 150 years ago, but now she is too old and ugly even for the most advanced and politically correct geriatric publications.

haha! How about National Geographic, she sorta resembles the sphinx.

 

[DaSleeper]

Nancy Pelosi is a babe, I look forward to her upcoming spread in Geriatric Hustler.

Now that was

If you're into S&M

 

[YukonJack]

At least, according to history books, the Sphinx was never responsible for the ruination of Egypt.

 

[Icarus27k]

If driving the deficit skywards and increasing spending is considered productive...then you're right.

Right, I think those things have more to do with the worst recession since the Great Depression, which Pelosi handled well. In other words, deficits and spending probably should increase under situations such as that. As for all the other stuff that makes the House the most productive I've ever see it be, read this.

Norman Ornstein: The best Congress you?ll ever hate
The productivity began with the stimulus package, which was far more than an injection of $787 billion in government spending to jump-start the ailing economy. More than one-third of it -- $288 billion -- came in the form of tax cuts, making it one of the largest tax cuts in history, with sizable credits for energy conservation and renewable energy production as well as home buying and college tuition. The stimulus also promised $19 billion for the critical policy arena of health-information technology, and more than $1 billion to advance research on the effectiveness of health care treatments.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan has leveraged some of the stimulus money to encourage wide-ranging reform in school districts across the country. There were also massive investments in green technologies, clean water and a smart grid for electricity, while the $70 billion or more in energy and environmental programs was perhaps the most ambitious advancement in these areas in modern times. As a bonus, more than $7 billion was allotted to expand broadband and wireless Internet access, a step toward the goal of universal access.
Any Congress that passed all these items separately would be considered enormously productive. Instead, this Congress did it in one bill. Lawmakers then added to their record by expanding children’s health insurance and providing stiff oversight of the TARP funds allocated by the previous Congress. Other accomplishments included a law to allow the FDA to regulate tobacco, the largest land conservation law in nearly two decades, a credit card holders’ bill of rights and defense procurement reform.
The House, of course, did much more, including approving a historic cap-and-trade bill and sweeping financial regulatory changes. And both chambers passed their versions of a health care overhaul. Financial regulation is working its way through the Senate, and is on track for enactment in the first half of this year. It is likely that the package of job-creation programs the president showcased last week, most of which got through the House last year, will be signed into law early on as well.








Did you know that Nancy Pelosi is the highest-ranking US official to pay respects to the victims of the Hiroshima bombing? That gives her leadership at least a grade B in itself. What with it kind of showing she has more political courage than 60 years worth of US officials.

 

[ironsides]

Nancy Pelosi and Jane Fonda did a lot of things we did not like.

 

[Icarus27k]

And, of course, the news is yes: Nancy Pelosi is running for the position of House Democratic Leader.

Pelosi wants to remain leader of House Democrats




By DAVID LIGHTMAN

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that she will 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 believe 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.


http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/05/1910953/pelosi-wants-to-remain-leader.html#ixzz14S7p5RYw​

 

[gopher]

''Did you know that Nancy Pelosi is the highest-ranking US official to pay respects to the victims of the Hiroshima bombing? That gives her leadership at least a grade B in itself. What with it kind of showing she has more political courage than 60 years worth of US officials.''

This does not even begin to match Reagan's stupidity in honoring Nazi soldiers killed during WWII. But still, the issue here is the utter ineffectiveness Pelosi displayed in her years as Speaker. Republicans should pray that she continues in a similar capacity as she will screw up the Dems even worse with her ineptitude.

 

[DaSleeper]

At least now..........she looses the big jet:smile:

 

[EagleSmack]

Did you know that Nancy Pelosi is the highest-ranking US official to pay respects to the victims of the Hiroshima bombing? That gives her leadership at least a grade B in itself. What with it kind of showing she has more political courage than 60 years worth of US officials.

Doesn't surprise me. No wonder why the country went red. Behavoir like this.

''Did you know that Nancy Pelosi is the highest-ranking US official to pay respects to the victims of the Hiroshima bombing? That gives her leadership at least a grade B in itself. What with it kind of showing she has more political courage than 60 years worth of US officials.''

This does not even begin to match Reagan's stupidity in honoring Nazi soldiers killed during WWII. But still, the issue here is the utter ineffectiveness Pelosi displayed in her years as Speaker. Republicans should pray that she continues in a similar capacity as she will screw up the Dems even worse with her ineptitude.

Hey Gopher... so much for all your "approval ratings". Your peeps got the smack down!