Last week, the Sacramento (CA) Bee editorialized on the future of Nancy Pelosi, the embarrassing one-term Speaker of the House of Representatives who is just dying to get that job back. In order for that to happen, of course, the Democrats would have to take back the majority in the House, something they fervently believe to be possible (hint: it is only somewhat possible as I write this, though there are possibilities).
The Bee's editorialist was not particularly optimistic about the prospects for the Democrats taking the majority, particularly if Mrs. Pelosi decided to insist that she be elected Speaker if that were to happen. The opinion was:
"It’s getting close to crunch time, and the San Francisco Democrat
[Pelosi, not a rival newspaper] must put her party and her country ahead of her personal ambition and
declare that she will not seek the speakership again. This is much bigger than her [sic]. To
retake control of the House, Democrats need to gain at least 23 seats in
November. That’s no easy task. And it’s even more difficult now that
Pelosi’s future has become a distracting campaign issue for Democrats in
key swing districts, where they need moderate and even Republican votes
to win."
Grammar notwithstanding, the Bee has figured out what Mrs. Pelosi has not, which is that once you get 50 miles or so away from downtown San Francisco, people don't like her. They don't like her because people don't like people who want you to think that they are better than they, who know better for you and your family than you do yourself. And they don't like her enough to vote for the opponent of any candidate supporting her Speaker ambitions.
Nancy Pelosi can never take back her most famous line, the one about Obamacare -- "You'll have to pass it to find out what's in it." And it's good that she cannot, because that statement sums up why, in hundreds of congressional districts, Republicans are running with commercials of Nancy Pelosi, making sure that voters know that if they elect Democrats, that is what you're going to get as Speaker.
It is why some Democrat candidates -- over 40 of them to date -- have stated openly that if elected, they will not support Mrs. Pelosi as Speaker. But that does not faze her a bit.
It can't faze her; after all, she not only wants you to think she is better than you, and knows more than you, she truly believes it. If she didn't believe it, she would be modifying her tone at least somewhat, right?
The opinion piece noted that Mrs. Pelosi was waving around something written by the New York Times economist Paul Krugman about her. "She was the greatest Speaker ever", Krugman insisted, having won legislative victories in her two years like, well, Obamacare.
Now, we'll set aside the fact that you or I could have gotten Obamacare through that overwhelmingly-Democrat Congress before Ted Kennedy died; the Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a majority in the House, they didn't need a Republican vote for anything -- and didn't get them.
More important, she quoted Paul Krugman, of all people. Krugman is the guy who, while we were mired in anemic growth during the second miserable Obama term, declared that the new normal for our economy was a maximum of 2% growth per year. That was it, forget it. Couldn't do better.
It took all of what -- 18 months -- of an Administration committed to growing jobs and the economy, before we saw double what Krugman thought was a maximum possible growth level. What does that say about Krugman, as an arbiter of what does or does not constitute competence as a Speaker of the House?
What does that say about Nancy Pelosi when that's the guy she thinks people will trust for an opinion on whether she was any good in that job, when the American voter booted her out of office the first chance they got?
I'm not sure what the Bee particularly hopes will happen, but I would be just as happy if Democrats running for the House all over the place positively embrace Nancy Pelosi. She is just wonderful -- Paul Krugman said so, and look what he knows!
I rather imagine that the Republicans will not only hold the House but might even pick up a seat or two, which never happens in the off-year after a presidential election. It's not the norm, but Lordy, those paychecks are better, and people vote with those.
Should be fun.
Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
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On odd days I believe the electorate will ignore all of the manufactured (and self-inflicted) drama and just take a sober look at how Republicans have changed their financial status with their policies....and vote accordingly.
ReplyDeleteOn even days, though, I remember countless conversations with people and the "depth" of their thinking and my faith significantly weakens.
Yes, I am aware that the Democrats indeed took over the House, and that all those Democrat candidates who said they would never let Pelosi be Speaker ended up voting for her -- and now have a track record that they did so, which they'll have to defend in the 2020 election.
ReplyDeleteBut then the new representatives included a few of the biggest fools we've ever seen in government, and every Democrat candidate in 2020 in a swing district is going to have to defend AOC and Omar and those types. And they'll have to defend two years of nothing but investigations and no actual legislating. Good luck keeping the House.