Nancy Pelosi ranks second-in-
line to the presidency after
Dick Cheney
Posted on 11/18/2006 5:33:09 PM PST by bruinbirdman
New Speaker's embarrassing week has made it easier for her opponents to attack
Republican strategists plotting their party's comeback after it lost control of Congress have identified the "first lady" of Democrat politics as a key target in the 2008 White House campaign — even though she will not be running.
Senior party operatives told The Sunday Telegraph that they are already co-ordinating plans to attack Nancy Pelosi, the liberal Californian congresswoman and Speaker-in-waiting who suffered a damaging rebuff from her own party caucus last week.
Nancy Pelosi ranks second-in-
line to the presidency after
Dick Cheney
The Republican strategy is not only to undermine Mrs Pelosi's control of the House but also to associate her in voters' minds with Senator Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the 2008 Democrat presidential nomination.
"Two years of Pelosi gives a good idea of what four years of Hillary will be like," said Tom DeLay, the Republican powerbroker who ran his party in the House before he was caught up in a lobbyist corruption scandal. "They are both committed liberals and we will make that clear to the American people."
Mrs Clinton, 59, has yet to declare herself as a presidential candidate but has accumulated a vast war chest of campaign donations that would make her hard to stop if she decides to run for the Democratic nomination. Republican strategists are determined to prepare for the possibility well in advance.
Mrs Pelosi's opening-week blunders will make the Republican tactics easier to execute. Her ally John Murtha, a Vietnam veteran who is leading calls for an immediate US troop pull-out from Iraq, lost heavily in a party ballot for the position of majority leader, one rung down from speaker, despite Mrs Pelosi's heavy lobbying for him. That embarrassment presages the trouble she will have holding together the Democratic majority, whose members range from left-wingers from inner-city districts to centrist congressmen from suburban areas in the Midwest and West.
Mrs Pelosi, 66, who is married to a multi-millionaire property investor, will become the most powerful woman in American political history when the new House sits for the first time in January.
As speaker, she ranks second-in-line to the presidency after Dick Cheney, the vice-president. Her solidly liberal voting record during her 19 years as a San Francisco congresswoman have made her a long-time target for Republican strategists' attacks.
They now plan to focus on the difficulty she is likely to have in running the House, splits within Democrat ranks on Iraq and her boast that she we will oversee "the most ethical Congress ever" in the wake of Republican corruption scandals. "Pelosi has set the bar extraordinarily high for the conduct of her caucus, herself and even Hillary," said a former Republican House strategist.
Tony Coehlo, a former Democrat whip in the House who ran Vice President Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, acknowledged his party concerns. "Even seasoned Democrats are concerned about the Republicans' ability to tar the polished Hillary by attacking Mrs Pelosi," he told The Sunday Telegraph.
"If Nancy does poorly, that hurts Hillary. That's really unfair, but that's what everyone thinks. That's reality. To help Hillary, Nancy has to be perceived as an effective leader and she's had a terrible start. It was just an awful first week."
A senior Republican operative who planned the damaging advertisements against Sen John Kerry, the Democrats' presidential candidate in 2004, predicted that it would not be easy to turn Mrs Pelosi into a surrogate target for Mrs Clinton.
"If Hillary has been able to separate herself from criticisms of her own husband, she'll try to do the same with Pelosi," he said. "She and her people are very smart and they will try to highlight the difference between the two women. You will see Hillary move more to the centre."
But a former strategist for a Republican House leader said: "If Pelosi comes across as not ready for prime time, that's going to hamstring Hillary. Fair or not, people can't help but make that comparison… Even Hillary's people are recognising that their fates are linked."
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That's excellent!
Sat. Night Live Pelosi ping
Coehlo was also Jim Wright's "left" hand man, who left the House rather than face ethics charges.
Thanks nit, I watched but actually need a transcript to read.
"does she have two sets of eyebrows"
No, its just effect of numerous face lifts. If any of those rivets break her eyebrows will end up somewhere south of the base of her neck.
***...I'm like a breast feeding baby in a topless bar...***
Yer damn lucky I stopped using that tag line, bub!
Quiz time: What does the expression: 'Lock and Load' really mean?
Stay well armed and safe, pal, and what-the-hell, 'Lock-and-Load'!...............FRegards
My grandmother was so far off the left-wing horizon that she makes Pelosi look like Joan of Arc. =8-0>
You bet. Coelho is so crooked he could hide behind a spiral staircase (with greatful thanks to P.G. Woodhouse).
One dumb-o crat stabbing another dumb-ocrat in the back, please say it's not true. What is this world coming to, oh wait their both dumb-o-crats, never mind I understand.
I personally hope we do more than just make fun of her looks. I am really afraid that this is going to be our main obsession for two years and not look at the dems issues and she is going to run the House for the next 12 years until another switch happens. Personally I could care less what a person looks like. What I think we should be emphasising is the issues!!!! Why do we waste our time on such stupid things. I just don't get it.
I'm reasonably certain that was Chris LaCivita.
I hope we make fun of more than their looks as well. However, it is a documented fact that Republican women are better looking than Democrat women. I believe the men are better looking as well, though that has not been documented. But, I am thinking Ronald Reagan, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney(even though he seems phoney), I could go on and on. Anyways, looks can be political ie with lefties think smelly hippies and on their other end botox queens like Kerry. On the right you have Coulter(not elected yet), Kathleen Harris, Laura Bush, and many others.
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