Posts Tagged ‘Edward Kennedy’

Democrats Finally Face the Pelosi Question

Saturday, June 24th, 2017

Have Democrats finally, finally, finally gotten sick and tired of Nancy Pelosi?

It’s been a decade since Pelosi ascended to the speaker’s chair, and since Democrats lost control of the House in 2010, there have been mutterings that Pelosi is a drag on the party. Despite that, she’s continues to get elected as Minority Leader.

But following Jon Ossoff’s loss in the Georgia 6th Congressional District special election, that finally seems to be changing:

Democrats’ embarrassing special-election loss in Georgia, after the liberal media built up unrealistic expectations, has provoked a wave of bitter blowback that targets House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Snip.

On Wednesday, some Democratic members of Congress publicly voiced concerns about Pelosi, raising the specter of a leadership challenge.

“I think you’d have to be an idiot to think we could win the House with Pelosi at the top,” Rep. Filemon Vela, a Texas Democrat, told Politico.

“Nancy Pelosi is not the only reason that Ossoff lost, but she certainly is one of the reasons.

Representative Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, reportedly met Wednesday morning with a group of lawmakers who have been conferring about economic messaging, according to several people present who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Luján told the group that his committee would examine the Georgia results for lessons, but he urged the lawmakers to portray the race in positive terms in their public comments, stressing that Democrats have consistently exceeded their historical performance in a series of special elections fought in solidly Republican territory.

It was in the meeting with Mr. Luján that Mr. Cárdenas, a member of the Democratic leadership, brought up Ms. Pelosi’s role in the Georgia race, calling it “the elephant in the room.”

Ms. Pelosi was not present.

On the front page of liberal heartland Silicon Valley’s paper, The Mercury News of San Jose: “Question: Is Nancy Pelosi the problem?”

“Some of the toughest ads against the 30-year-old [Georgia Dem candidate Jon] Ossoff were those tying him to Pelosi, whose approval ratings are underwater outside California.”

Furthermore, as NYTimes reports, in a possible omen, the first Democratic candidate to announce his campaign after the Georgia defeat immediately vowed not to support Ms. Pelosi for leader.

Joe Cunningham, a South Carolina lawyer challenging Representative Mark Sanford, said Democrats needed “new leadership now.”

Even Democrats who are not openly antagonistic toward Ms. Pelosi acknowledged that a decade of Republican attacks had taken a toll: “It’s pretty difficult to undo the demonization of anyone,” said Representative Bill Pascrell Jr. of New Jersey.

So with all that said, we are left with one question, as The Economic Collapse blog’s Michael Snyder asks, are the ‘toxic’ Democrats destine to become a permanent minority party?

Every political generation needs a “designated hate object” on the other side. In the early 1990s, a joke went around Republican circles about a direct mail guy: “I had the most horrible dream! Jesse Jackson and Ted Kennedy went down in the same plane!”

But Jackson and Kennedy were clearly to the left of center in a Democratic Party that still included some conservatives and moderates, and neither had any formal leadership role in the party, Jackson never having held office and Kennedy having lost his role as Majority Whip to Robert Byrd in 1971).

By contrast, Pelosi is not an ideological outlier in her Party, but emblematic of it. As Minority Leader, Pelosi is arguably the highest ranking elected Democrat in the country right now.

The reason Pelosi was able to be elected Speaker in the first place is that Howard Dean’s “50 state strategy” helped empower a lot of moderate Democrats to run and win (at least during a wave election) in deep red states, the last gasp of the “Blue Dog Democrats.” Then Pelosi ruthlessly pushed the Stupak bloc flippers into betraying their pledges on the ObamaCare vote, and the aftermath of 2010 wiped most of them out. The congressional careers of Brad Ellsworth, Bart Stupak, James Oberstar, Steve Driehaus, Steve Chabot, Charles Wilson (the Ohio rep, not the Texas one), Kathy Dahlkemper, Paul Kanjorski and Solomon Ortiz died for Nancy Pelosi’s sins. Moreover, the uniformity of far left ideology in the current Democratic Party prevents anyone like them from running in and winning a Democratic primary.

Nancy Pelosi is toxic because her party is toxic.

As Rich Lowry notes:

Stopping Trump is imperative, so long as it doesn’t require the party rethinking its uncompromising stance on abortion, guns or immigration. Every old rule should be thrown out in the cause of the resistance—except the tried-and-true orthodoxies on social issues.

If Democrats had to choose between opposing an honest-to-goodness coup and endorsing a ban on abortion after 20 weeks, they’d probably have to think about it. And if they dared pick opposition to the coup, NARAL Pro Choice America would come after them hammer and tongs.

Those issues, and the unpopularity of ObamaCare, and the relentless Social Justice Warrior madness, etc., are what’s hurting the Democratic Party.

Pelosi has put down rebellions in her ranks before, but this one seems more widespread. Also, Pelosi is 77, and has recently started to have more senior moments than she used to.

Still, something tells me that House Democrats lack the guts to oust Pelosi mid-session. But if Democrats do badly in next year’s midterms, then the knives might really come out…

LinkSwarm for November 17, 2011

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

A random collection of links presented instead of actual content:

  • It turns out that Jabba the Hutt didn’t bang Princess Leia, but he did try to get her to bang Chris Dodd. Being a Democrat means getting away with things that would force a Republican to resign. If bloggers hadn’t forced the MSM to cover the story, they would have covered up for Anthony Weiner, too. The Washington press knew for decades that Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd were utter sleazebags, and yet they still carried water for them. The question is: What Democratic scandals do MSM reporters know about right now that they’re refusing to cover?
  • The United State Air Force would like you to say hello to their little friend: “Aerospace giant Boeing Co. has delivered the first batch of 30,000-pound [Massive Ordnance Penetrator] bombs, each nearly five tons heavier than anything else in the military’s arsenal…The weapon’s explosive power is 10 times greater than its bunker-buster predecessor, the BLU-109. And it is nearly five tons heavier than the 22,600-pound GBU-43 MOAB surface bomb, sometimes called the ‘mother of all bombs.'”
  • Rich liberals want other taxpayers to subsidize their decision to live in New York. “[It] might as well be called the Bicoastal Elite Tax Relief Act.”
  • Trouble at Gulf Coast Planned Parenthood.
  • Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were at the very heart of the housing bubble collapse. And yet, I’m not aware of a single office holder from the Democratic Party who has even suggested closing or privatizing Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. This isn’t closing the barn door after the cow escaped, this is getting a whole new barn, a new cow, and a new oil lantern, and putting the oil lantern in the exact same place the previous cow knocked it over when it burned down the previous barn.
  • Cheap solar? Ain’t happening.
  • You know how Formula 1 racing was coming to Austin with the help of taxpayer subsidies? Yeah, not so much. According to Comptroller Susan Combs: “We have not paid out any money for the Formula 1 event. The only dollars that can be spent on the United States Grand Prix are tax revenues attributable to the successful running of a race. The state of Texas will not be paying any funds in advance of the event.” I’m still not a fan of the Major Events Trust Fund, as tax kickbacks for sporting events are not a proper function of government, but at least they’re not providing blank checks the way some taxpayer subsidies of professional sports do.
  • Iowahawk occupies Alan Sherman.