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When an army loses a battle, the leaders should look for the cause of the failure in themselves first. The same applies to a political party. As such, the Democratic leadership should be considering the role they played in the failures of their party.
While Obama is (in theory) the main leader of the party, Nancy Pelosi is also is also a major leader. While Obama’s popularity has dipped, Pelosi’s approval rating is rather dismal. This, no doubt, has played a role in calls for Nancy to step aside and let another Democrat take the leadership role in the House.
One rather practical reason for her to step aside is that she seems to provide the Republicans with a clear focus for attack. While this is to be expected, she also seems to be a very viable target: going after her seems to generate positive results for the Republicans. Given her unpopularity, this is hardly a surprise.
Another practical reason is that concerns have been expressed about her competency and effectiveness as a leader. As noted above, the Democrats lost the House. While this cannot be blamed entirely on Pelosi, it seems reasonable to lay at least a major slice of the blame at her door.
Her failure, it might be argued, can be seen as one of substance or appearance (or both). The election results showed that many Americans are not happy with the Democratic’s polices. This might be due to the actual policies, which Pelosi had a hand in shaping. Of course, it seems likely that most people (including Pelosi) are not aware of the actual content of many of the policies (who among us has actually read the health care documents?). It definitely has to do with the perception of the policies. Pelosi and the other Democrats seem to have failed in regards to persuading the American people that these policies were a good idea. To be fair, Pelosi did have to contend with the Republicans and the Tea Party-two forces that should not be idly dismissed. In any case, she seems to have failed dramatically.
Of course, it is fair to consider that failure was a honorable one. That is, Pelosi and the Democrats fought the good fight but lost despite those efforts. As such, one might argue, she does deserve a chance to lead the troops once again. After all, many great leaders (including General Washington) faced dire defeats and came back to achieve victory.
However, Pelosi has had a long time to show off her skills and some would say that is time for new leadership for the Democrats. Of course, no matter who take the role, it will be a politician. And a Democrat.
Seriously dude, that was painful. You owe me 1 minute and 8 seconds.
Of course it is painful–what did you expect given the subject?
” To be fair, Pelosi did have to contend with the Republicans and the Tea Party-two forces that should not be idly dismissed.”
Who’s to say they didn’t do her and the D’s a favor by keeping them from going even further over the edge? She had a significant majority in the House and her buddy Harry had a filibuster-proof (by D/R count, anyway) majority in the Senate. She chose to exclude R’s from the bill writing process. Dealing with R’s is part of the job that comes with being Speaker, as Boehner will need to do with D’s. In fact, he’s going to have an even tougher job holding the R factions together. If you can’t stand the heat, don’t take the job.
Let’s give it another election cycle or two and see how many mavericks there are in the Republican ranks.
You mean Republicrats?
To be fair to Pelosi, the Republicans seemed to have adopted a strategy of non-cooperation.
Interesting point about Boehner-the Republicans do have distinct camps as well. Of course, the party has been actively purifying its ranks of moderates, so maybe there will be little meaningful dissent.
“the party has been actively purifying its ranks of moderates”
Nonsense. You’ve been reading too much Newsweek. They are getting rid of establishment hacks, which is not the same thing.
agreed.
If either party would ever succeed at that you wouldn’t have enough canditates for either party to fill all the political openings and besides, the public loves its hacks and their porky selves or at least it dit unti 2009
Getting rid of hacks can be seen as the best form of purifying. 🙂
What does it mean to be a moderate Republican? To uphold all of the ideals that the Democrat party want you to?
When Bill Clinton balanced the budget, he was a moderate.
When a Tea Party Republican says he wants to balance the budget, he is an “extremist.”
“After all, many great leaders (including General Washington) faced dire defeats and came back to achieve victory.”
Mike just compared Pelosi with George washington. “nuff said….