Many Democrats claimed during fall campaigns that they were going to vote against Pelosi, but how do we know? It’s quite possibly that they said they were voting one way while casting their vote for Pelosi far away from the public’s eye.
Until they publish an actual roll-call vote, you should assume that any Democratic House member voted to keep Nancy Pelosi as their leader unless they can prove otherwise.
—Democrats in the House of Representatives voted 150-43 Wednesday to keep House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as their leader in the new Congress, a number of lawmakers said as they emerged from the caucus meeting.
I wonder what revenge she will extract against those members who suggested that maybe offering a new job to the pilot of the Hindenburg wasn’t such a good idea…
Or “Democratic House Members Held Hostage: Day 15” (Imagine dramatic Nightline opening theme music here.)
You might have noticed we had an election a couple of weeks ago. Democrats didn’t do so well. Especially in the House, where Democrats lost 606162 seats and counting. The House lead by Nancy Pelosi. The Nancy Pelosi who forced ObamaCare through despite widespread public opposition, a huge contributing factor in the democrats’ electoral slaughter.
Given that, common sense would suggest that Pelosi step aside and not run for Minority Leader. But Nancy Pelosi has never been one to let common sense stand in her way.
On the other hand, her hardcore liberal supporters are rallying around her: “Her talents are unique.” Well, yes. Not even Tom Foley managed to lose 60+ seats in 1994. That takes the special kind of high-handed, self-righteous, tone-deafness that Pelosi excels in.
And what will Rangel be sentenced to for tax evasion, rent control fraud, etc.? Most likely, a strongly worded letter. He’ll get to live on in the 112th congress as reminder of Nancy Pelosi’s “most ethical congress ever.”
And how badly did his ethics problems hurt him at the polls? He won his race against Michel Faulkner by 86% of the vote. Maybe if he had killed someone on live television, his poll numbers might have dipped into the 70s…
Top Ten Upsets of the 2010 Election. (Warning: slide show.) Some of the surprises were the Democrats that didn’t lose (such as Harry Reid), but several (Ortiz, Oberstar, Wilson, Gene Taylor) were upsets I predicted.
The question isn’t whether Blake Farenthold beat Solomon Ortiz, the question is whether the win is “outside the margin of ACORN.”
Need an example of the above? Try this: “The Bean campaign approached the Cook County Clerk’s Office, requested and received a list of all outstanding absentee ballots with name, address, and phone numbers. As alarming as that was, they also asked for and were provided an exact image of a blank absentee ballot.”
Study after study have shown Republicans are more generous than Democrats. This year’s election just proved that the same applies to the Texas congressional delegation. “The 20 Texas Republican incumbents, none of whom faced serious opposition, gave an average of $100,000 each to Republicans. Texas Democrats, meanwhile, provided relatively meager support for endangered Democratic incumbents. They averaged $26,000 in donations to other candidates in their party.”
The Democrats have a Rust Belt problem: “The drop-off in Democratic support among older voters and white voters from the last midterm election is remarkable. In 2006 Democrats lost white voters by 4 points in House races, which are a fairly good indicator of party preference, and they tied among voters 65 and over. This year they lost whites by 23 points and lost older voters by 21 points.”
Remember during the aftermath of the 2000 election when Al Gore tried to get a recount done in just the counties that favored Democratic voters?
Well, soon-to-be-Ex-Rep. Solomon Ortiz just tried to do the same thing in the race he lost to Republican Blake Farenthold, asking for a recount of just three Nueces County precincts.
The Texas Supreme Court rejected his appeal, noting that state law requires all precincts to be included in the re-count.
Singles, under-$25,000-income voters, and voters 18-29 all decided late and broke for Obama, indicating the “rally the base” appeal partially worked.
Blacks cast only 10 percent of the vote and Latinos only 8 percent in the 2010 elections. In 2008, they cast 13 and 10 percent, respectively.
Union members broke evenly, with 49 percent backing Democrats and 47 percent voting Republican.
Voters under 30 constituted only 11 percent of the vote, and those 18-24 were just 3 percent. [Insert generic geezer anti-Facebooking, Twitter, Pabst-Blue-Ribbon Swilling Anti-Hipster Get-off-My-Lawn rant here.]
This year was pretty bad for Democrats, but 2012 isn’t looking much better: “Short-term trends look dismal for congressional Democrats. Even if Democrats turn their political fortunes around, they’re still likely to lose seats in the Senate and will be hard-pressed to make inroads in the House, thanks to factors entirely out of their control.” The reasons include Democrats playing defense on more Senate seats in red and battleground states, Republicans controlling redistricting and, of course, Nancy Pelosi. “Obama wasn’t the reason we lost. It was because of Pelosi. She was a turnout machine – for the other side.”
National Journal updates the state of play in the House races that still haven’t been decided yet.
Short version:
California 11: Democratic incumbent Jerry McNerney holds a 628-vote lead over Republican David Harmer, but not all ballots from Republican-leaning locales have been counted yet.
California 20 Republican Andy Vidak leads Democratic incumbent Jim Costa by a mere 145 votes.
Illinois 8: Republican Joe Walsh leads Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean, which should hold up unless Cook County cooks up some fraud (and when has that ever happened?).
Kentucky 6: Democratic incumbent Ben Chandler leads Republican Andy Barr by 649 votes, recanvass starts next week
New York 1: Republican Randy Altschuler leads Democratic incumbent Tim Bishop by either 392 votes or 383 votes.
New York’s 25: Republican Ann Marie Buerkle leads Democratic incumbent Dan Maffei by 659 votes, but there are still ballots to be counted.
Texas 27: Republican Blake Farenthold leads Democratic incumbent Solomon Ortiz by 792 votes, with only 736 overseas and provisional ballots left to count. Ortiz wants a manual recount.
