Posted on 11/07/2010 4:28:09 AM PST by Kaslin
The party’s top leadership looks committed to moving exactly in the opposite direction of the American electorate.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the gift that keeps on giving. With her announcement that she intends to stay on as the Democratic Party’s top leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, she guarantees that the public will continue to have an unfavorable image of Washington Democrats.
Word that Pelosi was going to stay on as Democratic House leader was announced as I attended a conservative post-election luncheon analysis in Washington at the National Press Club. There were a lot of smiles in the room.
Further, the separate report last week that hard-left Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) is likely to challenge “moderate” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) for the number two House spot means that the party’s top leadership will continue to move exactly in the opposite direction of the American electorate.
Pelosi’s continued leadership also means that President Obama will have to deal with a strong left-wing counterweight from the liberal House caucus, and will have to deal with them if he considers doing a Clinton waltz towards the center. This is all good news for Republicans, and represents more potential self-inflicted wounds by Democrats. One of the worst things that could have happened to Republicans was if Pelosi stepped aside and faded out of the news. She is a lightning rod, representing all that is wrong about Washington and its culture.
The reason Pelosi and Clyburn can remain without serious opposition is because the center of gravity within the House Democrats has moved to the left, as the nation has moved to the right. Many Blue Dog “moderates” lost last Tuesday night. The surviving Democrats are left liberals who won in safe liberal congressional districts, seemingly living in a worry-free bubble, oblivious to the anger expressed all year long by middle-class working Americans.
The interesting question: what will the president do? He quickly fled the United States after the election for an extravagant ten-day tour of India and Asia. This is not too unusual — many presidents faced with unpopularity at home have found refuge in trips abroad. I remember Richard Nixon’s trip before mobs of enthusiastic Egyptians in Cairo about two months before he resigned his presidency.
Panelists at the post-election luncheon last week wondered aloud if the president might take the time overseas to reflect on the new post-election environment. Did he truly want to work with Republicans, or would he continue to run against them? A Pelosi-Clyburn leadership duo certainly would push for the latter.
For Pelosi, stern leadership style was only matched by her apparent public denial that her party was rapidly losing popular support for her agenda. People in this town remember her preposterous comment “we won last night” after Democrats lost the governorships in New Jersey and Virginia.
The possible ascendancy of Rep. Clyburn to the number two slot would be a clear signal that House Democrats are doubling down. Clyburn is an outspoken member of the Congressional Black Caucus. When he became whip with Pelosi, he refused to accept the gavel from outgoing Republican (and white) Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO). He decided instead to accept the gavel from a black legislator, Rep. William Gray, who was House whip in 1989. It was not a good moment for post-racial politics. It also was Clyburn who charged last March that tea party demonstrators hurled ugly racial epithets towards Democratic black House members during the final vote on the health care bill. Clyburn said the event “was absolutely shocking to me,” although video of the incident revealed no evidence of racist behavior.
For Republicans, the Pelosi decision may yet be another free ride. For Democrats, they may rue the day when Nancy Pelosi decided to remain in the limelight.
Are the Dems going further left? Hope so.
I'm still shooting for 129 "new Republicans" ~ maybe by the first day of the next session, or, if not then, by June about the time the Odd Year state campaigns begin since some of the better established, but otherwise disillusioned Democrat representatives will be dropping out of Congress to run for Governor, or other entertaining positions.
For many professional politicians it's better to be a big frog in a small pond than a squarshed frog in the Well of the House!
That really is the big problem. Most "conservatives" are "conservative" ... until it is their favorite unconstitutional government program that needs to be trimmed back. This happens quite often with public school funding too.
Their insanity is astonishing! I mean all of them! The WH keeps doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result and Congress follows like the intellectual midgets that they are!
They are either insane or profoundly evil.
The “trimming back” must be careful reform and not wholesale elimination to be conservative and not reactionary.
Revolutionary changes instead of careful reform generally are a cure as bad as the illness.
The may be insane, they are not stupid. They are however very, very evil.
I do not believe they will vote Nancy another go at being thier leader, although the political hay that could be gained for conservatives may make me wish it so.
He is obviously a "Jim Snow" bigot.
Hell they virtually wiped out the blue dogs (what 14-16 left in the house from the south?).
All that is left is the extreme left. Carville talked about 40 years of RAT control. They had two years.
This truly demonstrates how crazy they are.
Let her be heard.
Exactly, Obama is a hard core leftist and it is impossible for him to move to the center.
The thinking that would put a Clyburn in a leadership position is a gift to conservatives that keeps on giving.
We just need to know how to make most of the gift.
I am not sure the RNC would know how to do that.
They’ve got to push, only 2 years to get a civil war going.
We had gains in the election and will now be able to have some control over the budget and block some of Obama’s agenda.
However, he can still do many things through Executive Orders. They still control the vast majority of the media. There are still plenty of RINOs in the GOP that don't like Tea Party folks and want to throw out principles to show Bipartisanship.
We definitely threw a speed bump in front of them, but they are still in the drivers seat. Obama and the radicals in charge are not the usual politicians. They are Communists that will not moderate their beliefs based on this election.
They lost any moderate-leaning districts in the election.
All that's left are the hard-core Dems from districts full of Federal money leeches.
Nancy Jezepelosi i.e. Jezebel.
I can't wait for the Pelosi to hit the fan.
They need to put in power their most loyal Marxists who can and will incite as much hatred, violence and chaos as possible to block Republicans from undoing their “progress” and investigating their many crimes. They need people who are skilled in coordinating demon messaging with their media. They need to demonize Republicans and create public fear and hysteria as Republicans try to cut the size of government to reduce deficit spending.
Hoyer ran against Pelousy last time, did he not? He is slightly less left then she is but the Clyburn guy is great for us. He is everything we could hope for. Look at it this way, the dems already have 90+% of the black vote locked in. When the rest of the electorate sees exactly what it is this guy represents, they will vote for anyone who is not physically and verbally in sync with him and his racist notions. Double down with the asshat in the white house and it looks like another tidal wave coming in 2012.
Not much is going to change in the dimmocrat party till there is enacted a constitutional amendment limiting the term of office in the HOR. Look at those with the longest seniority, they are all lefties secure in their bastions of commies and or racists. It is not as much a problem when the dems are out of power but when they are in, these ninnies have complete control of the committees and the Speakers chairs. You end up getting what we had this past four years, complete clowns like Frank, Waxman, Conyers, Rangel, Miller et al.
The battle lines are being clearly drawn, for Civil War II, when the welfare recipients get cut off from their lifeblood (aka, TAXPAYERS).
This is all very worrisome to those who understand Marxism-Leninism.
Marx believed that democracy would lead to communist revolution. Lenin understood that it would not.
Lenin craved minority status. Only as a hard, pure, revolutionary minority could communists come to power.
And, in the Leninist modification of Marxist theory, it is only minority status that confers the right to rule. By definition, the majority (the workers) are hypnotized by "false consciousness". (Read Thomas Franks' "What's the Matter With Kansas" for a 21st Century restatement of basic Leninism).
Only when the Bolsheviks are shorn of compromisers, of non-revolutionaries seeking power for the benefits it brings, can the real revolutionary vanguard emerge and wield state power to finally smash the class enemy and bring true communism.
If the 193 Democrats in the House elect Nancy Pelosi as minority leader, it's another step closer to war. It means that they don't give a damn about 2012. It means that they reject the fundamental premise that elections confer legitimacy.
It means that they have completed their transformation into the enemy.
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