Pelosi Is Planning A Party
by Big Dog on Nov 9, 2010 at 04:37 Political
I bet it is not a TEA Party!
Nancy Pelosi is clueless. She bears a great deal of responsibility for the total beat down her party took in the last election. I know the apologizers will claim it was about anti incumbency and in a small way that is true. Most parties in power lose seats in the midterm (Bush gained in his first) but the scope of this beat down is historic. Not only did the Democrats lose more than 60 House seats and about 6 Senate seats, they lost over 600 seats in state and local elections. They lost the State House in many key states.
This was a complete repudiation of the way the Democrats drove the economy into the ditch since they took control in 2007. Up to that time the numbers were pretty good with low unemployment and low inflation. Since they have been in charge they have wrecked things and we are seeing the increase in prices that is showing before we hit massive inflation.
Given all this one would think that Democrats, and Pelosi in particular, would get the message. And if you are wondering, it is not that it was not sold the right way, it is that the polices were bad. Democrats wrecked things and it was time for change we could really believe in.
But Pelosi did not get the memo. The Botox must have numbed her brain. She is having a party:
Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the United States House of Representatives requests the pleasure of your company at a reception honoring the Accomplishments of the 111th Congress on Wednesday, the tenth day of November, two thousand ten at three thirty in the afternoon Cannon Caucus Room 345 Cannon House Office Building. Drudge
I wonder if that party will celebrate the accomplishment of losing more House seats in over 60 years or losing more state and local seats in at least that long or if they will celebrate the stupid things they did that led up to that historic defeat.
Pelosi was an effective Speaker. Her job was to push Obama’s agenda and that she did. She bribed, beat, and harassed people into doing what she wanted while they were being assured they would be rewarded for their stances on tough legislation that the people wanted.
Seems to me if they had actually spent time doing the people’s business and leaving the private sector alone the economy would have rebounded (like it is in other places) and more of them might not be adding to the unemployment numbers.
Ah yes, it is strange what Democrats tout as success…
If being slaughtered is success to them please keep them from running our military. To them General Custer was successful…
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: agenda, clueless, historic defeat, lies, party, Pelosi
“Ah yes, it is strange what Democrats tout as success…”
What you fail to see is that success for Democrats in Congress was to pass their agenda. It was not simply to do just enough to remain in power and get by. The do-nothing 109th Congress tried that and see what it got them in 2006.
Think of it like this:
In 1993 the Democrats battled for health care reform and failed. In 1994 they went out in a GOP bloodbath.
In 2009 the Democrats battled for health care reform and succeeded. In 2010 they went out in a GOP bloodbath.
Which do you think is better from the perspective of the Democratic Party?
I found this article on Slate last night while searching Google and I agree with it a lot. Sure I’m disappointed that the Democrats lost power in the House but they have a clear set of legislative successes in the 111th that make it all worth it.
Shorter Adam: Doing nothing or doing what the public does not like will result in being voted out of office.
The Democrats were successful in passing what they wanted. Whether it was a success overall is another thing. Many people do not like it and view it as a bad thing so Democrats were successful at imposing things on Americans that were unconstitutional and that Americans do not want.
Their success ended the careers of many long time Dems and lots of so called Blue Dogs. Now they might end up losing those things they worked for.
Big cost to lose the agenda.
I can’t speak for the states but in the House of the 62 losing Dems so far, only 9 of the losers had been in the House longer than 3 terms and were running for office. Add the 9 long timers that retired instead of running and you still only get to 18.
What we saw in the election was traditionally conservative districts voting conservatives back in after 2006 and 2008 losses combined with the typical success for the party out of power in the White House.
You can continue to argue policy was to blame but I’m not seeing evidence to back that up.
You wouldn’t but Obama did:
“I made the decision to go ahead and do it, and it proved as costly politically as we expected — probably actually a little more costly than we expected, politically,” he said.
Link
Barry knows that the policy cost him. He expected it to cost him and said it cost more than he expected.
You can spin the loss of over 60 seats, a historic event, as nothing more than shifting back but it was more. It was a reaction to out of touch government and the policies.
The states are an even bigger problem. The Dems lost a lot in the south and will be screwed when it comes to redistricting.
The South has been going Republican for decades. I’m not sure why in every election when it inches further and further red in elected offices that people have to read into it like it was some big change.
Experts Rank Pelosi Among Greatest House Speakers.
Nice.
Excerpt:
“…she’s going to rank quite high in the pantheon of modern speakers” of the last 100 years, said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Only Texas Democrat Sam Rayburn, the longest-serving speaker in history whose parliamentary maneuvers cleared the way for passage of civil rights and social legislation in the 1960s, ranks higher.
Four years isn’t much time to make it into the history books. …
Yet historians and nonpartisan political observers who take the long view say Pelosi stands out among the 52 lawmakers who have held the job…
“The last Congress in particular has been remarkable in its productivity — in both the number of bills enacted and their scope — and Pelosi shares much of the credit,” said Matthew Green, a political scientist at Catholic University of America and author of “The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership.”
Many speakers shepherded through big bills: Democrat Tip O’Neill guided major energy legislation though in 1978, and Republican Dennis Hastert twisted arms to create a new Medicare prescription drug benefit. But few, Green said, have passed more legislation than Pelosi.”
I would bet that if Pelosi ran over a dog, she would call that an “accomplishment”, and Adam would agree with her.
It boggles the mind at the way she seems to get her way- what is she, a witch? Imean, yea- she has the crone/ hag thing down pat, but really!
How can people, supposedly sane and sensible, vote with her?
There HAS to be blackmail on SOME level.
You are right Blake because she already did that. She ran over a bunch of Ble Dogs and they lost.
Adam thinks that is a good thing.
Remember, to the Alinsky followers, the ends justify the means.
“Adam thinks that is a good thing.”
You always throw out the end justifies the means phrase as if that’s some sinister idea in this case.
The problem is you start with the premise that the policy is wrong. If I’m saying I want the policy at the expense of loss of power then I’m wrong headed. Sorry. I reject your premise that the policy is wrong. The Democrats were elected to lead on those issues and they did.
No, the public isn’t fully in support of every piece of the agenda. The lack of support isn’t at the level you pretend it is either though. This is why exit polls showed the public split on many of the issues you seem to think broke the backs of the Democrats in Congress.
The election was all about the economy…as usual. It was going to be bad no matter what Democrats did on health care.
There is no doubt she was effective (I stated as much in the post) but effective at what cost? She did Obama’s bidding as she was supposed to but her “leaderdship” cost a historic number of seats.
Being effective and being good are two different thing particularly when one considers what such a ranking is based upon.
Hitler was effective but no one would argue he was good. He got what he wanted but look what it cost…
In a way the Democrats learned a lot from the GOP during the Bush years in the sense that the GOP pushed their policy on the premise that they were elected to lead, not check which way the wind is blowing. Funny how wrong the GOP thinks that is now that they’re out of power and they can spin the public opinion polls in their favor.
Funny how when Bush was elected you said he had no mandate but you claim that the Democrats had a mandate to accomplish these things when they were elected.
You misinterpret the 2008 election. Obama was elected because he was black and he was not Bush. PERIOD.
He had no experience (which is showing) and he had no mandate. If he were not black hillary would have trounced him.
His color is what got him elected but he had no mandtae to do this stuff.
Public opinion polls are one thing when they show disparity in different regions. When a huge majority of the population opposes something then it is up to the Congress to heed them. Yes Adam, we the people drive the agenda and if they don’t do it the way we like they get voted out.
It happened to Republicans and now it happened to Democrats.
Be funny if the mandate to buy is ruled unconstitutional and it unravels health care so they lost the seats for nothing.
Yes, the economy was a big part of this so perhaps if the smart guys had concentrated on that instead of ramming health care through they might still be in office.
“Funny how when Bush was elected you said he had no mandate but you claim that the Democrats had a mandate to accomplish these things when they were elected.”
What’s the difference? Bush narrowly won in 2000, scraped by to reelection in 2004. The GOP majorities grew slightly in 2002 and then they narrowly controlled congress in 2004. Obama on the other hand won in a landslide and the Democrats were given huge majorities in Congress. Ask me again why I think one group had a mandate to lead on their ideas and the others just pretended to have one.
“Yes, the economy was a big part of this so perhaps if the smart guys had concentrated on that…”
The Democrats did everything they could muster to help the economy. They would have spent more but your side loses their minds over deficits when you’re not the ones creating them. By many accounts the actions taken by Democrats prevented a depression. I won’t bother trying to convince you of that, I’m just going to state it again for the record.
Obama did not win a landslide and that word is not even mentioned in the Wiki entry for the election. You can check here to see that Obama did not meet the definition of a landslide. In fact, he did not crack any of the numbers in recognized landslides. Calling it a landslide does not make it so. Now that you know your premise was in error are you still willing to say there was a mandate?
Bush won in 2000 and in 2004 nearly the same number of people voted as in 2008. Bush won 51% of the vote and Obama 53% so it is not that much different.
Your claim in the past was that only a small part of the population voted in the election so there was no mandate. About the same percentage did not vote in 2008 so there was no mandate, at least by your last standard.
If you still think the 2008 election gave you a mandate then you must admit that the Republicans have a mandate to cut spending, extend the tax cuts, reduce government and repeal Obamacare because that is what they ran on.
I concede calling it a landslide is a of base. My point still stands though and whether or not it’s a landslide matters not. Obama won a decisive victory.
Let’s look at the outcomes of the elections we’re talking about:
Look at those 3 elections and tell me there’s not a clear difference between Obama’s victory and Bush’s.
In 2006 and 2008 the Democrats secured much stronger election victories in Congress than the GOP did in 2000, 2002 or 2004.
…a bit off base, rather.
“If you still think the 2008 election gave you a mandate then you must admit that the Republicans have a mandate to cut spending, extend the tax cuts, reduce government and repeal Obamacare because that is what they ran on.”
I don’t think the mandate is about specific policies each time so much as the GOP has been given a chance to lead again. I don’t believe the public wants each of the things you outlined but that is what the GOP ran on and the public will have no right to be surprised when that is what the GOP works toward in Congress.
The differences are minute in the big picture because more people (in all the elections) did not vote than did and that was your basic argument against a Bush mandate. You said more people did not vote than voted so he had no real mandate. That is obviously true in the Obama election.
Regardless of how you slice it, the win was not so significant to call anything a mandate. You all misread it. The public was war weary and tired of Bush. The Democrat economic collapse was placed at the feet of the Republicans and they paid.
The election was about getting rid of Bush and Republicans just like this one was about getting rid of Democrats.
“You said more people did not vote than voted so he had no real mandate.”
Frankly I don’t see why something I may or may not have said years ago that I don’t even agree with now has any bearing on the conversation.
“The election was about getting rid of Bush and Republicans just like this one was about getting rid of Democrats.”
So unless you can prove people voted for Democrats instead of against Bush then the fact that they were voted into office in mass still means they don’t have any mandate to pursue their agenda? I’m still having a hard time seeing conservatives who never lead by polls now pretending that public opinion is so important.
I’ll remember that statement by you when your side is fighting for a piece of legislation that the public is against even by narrow margins like health care. It’s going to happen and we’ll see if you want conservatives to lead or to see which way the wind blows.