The Nancy Pelosi Question

A Facebook friend posed the question as to why so many people despise Nancy Pelosi. I'm not sure I can answer that. For one, because I don't despise her. In general, my impression is that Democratic progressives see Pelosi as a sometime opponent but not as a villain.

Republicans criticize Pelosi because they're Republicans. On the Democratic side, there are plenty of personal ambitions involved, as always. But if Democrats are serious about checking Trump and taking their Consitutional duties seriously during the next two years, they're going to have to do more than marking time until 2020. Pelosi seems to have a solid reputation as a parliamentarian. But she's not very impressive in her media appearances, which matters a lot if she is going to be the House Majority Leader now.

Her "PayGo" slogan is politically nonsensical. The Republicans don't care if the Democrats want to be identified as the balanced budget party. It shows up on polls as a real concern just because it's considered a conventional virtue, but it has essentially zero effect on voting. And just a week ago as the news was rolling in on what turns out to be a historic win for Democrats that opened the way for her to become Speaker in January, she ... called for Bipartisanship. You would think even an inexperienced hack would be at least be able to stick to platitudes about a great victory for our Party, the people back our ideas, the public is ready for change, yadda, yadda. What kind of party leader celebrates a major partisan victory by announcing they're eager to surrender to the losers? The Nancy Pelosi kind.

Tim Ryan hinted last week that he might challenge her for the Speakership. (Brian Schwartz, Ohio Democrat Tim Ryan might challenge Nancy Pelosi for speaker if Democrats win the House CNBC 11/05/2018) But he's even more of a conventional corporate Democrat than Pelosi has become, so I'm guessing the new Blue Wave Dems wouldn't be enthusiastic for him. But Pelosi has been committed, including in 2018, to the kind of big-donor, consultant-heavy, media-based campaign approach that would have squelched the Democratic win this year. If the Democrats really want to get out of the Citizens United trap, they will have to use the kind of small-donor and local-organization based campaign models the Blue Wave Dems developed to a very impressive extent this year. If the Democrats want to build on that, they will have to push their House leadership hard to change their approach.

A big sign of which way Pelosi wants to go will be who she puts in the next level of Democratic leadership. This article (Bill Scher, Forget Pelosi. Challenge Hoyer. Politico Magazine 11/12/2018) suggests that her deputy Steney Hoyer would be a good sacrificial lamb. "He has ... irritated progressive activists ... by advocating for fiscal restraint of Social Security and Medicare, chiding protesters for confrontational tactics and pressuring left-wing candidates to bow out of swing-district House races."

Also, if it's only "progressive activists" who are determined to defend Social Security and Medicare, this could be the last election in which the Democrats win a majority in the House.