Will Pelosi’s Leadership Bid Help the Dems?

Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/talkradionews/" target="new">TalkRadioNews</a>.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced via Twitter that she will be running for Democratic minority leader of the next Congress. The move stunned many in Washington who had expected her to step down from the party leadership after Tuesday’s massive Democratic wipeout in the House. Traditionally, congressional leaders have bowed out after losing the majority in either chamber of Congress, prompting widespread speculation that one of Pelosi’s more moderate colleagues would take her place. But Pelosi’s liberal supporters have lobbied for her to stay on, and her candidacy effectively quashes any real competition for the post. Current majority leader Steny Hoyer says he will not challenge her. And though Blue Dog Heath Shuler has launched a quixotic bid to challenge Pelosi, the junior member is not seen as a threat, particularly as progressives now dominate the Democratic caucus. So the path for her new leadership bid is clear.

But will the return of Pelosi help the Democrats? Detractors argue that the Speaker helped embolden the tea party right and accelerate the GOP’s return to power, concluding that she’ll continue to be a liability for a deflated Democratic Party. Pelosi is certainly one of the most despised politicians in America today, in terms of favorability ratings: as the face of Obama’s Democratic Congress, her image was plastered all over anti-Democratic ads throughout the midterms. She was arguably the single biggest reason that health care reform passed the House, bringing it back from the dead after other Democratic leaders had all but written off its passage following Scott Brown’s upset win in January. Pelosi also forced members to take votes on measures like cap-and-trade that had a dim chance of passing the Senate before the midterms. Since the GOP used the Democratic agenda to scare voters into supporting them, the argument goes, the party needs a fresh start.

But for essentially the same reasons, Pelosi’s return could help revitalize the Democrats by giving the party’s disillusioned liberal base a reason to get excited again. “Speaker Pelosi’s decision to run for leader is the first bold move we’ve seen from Democrats since the election,” Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of Progressive Change Campaign Committee, wrote in a statement. Liberal activists argue that Democrats did themselves no favors by running away from the major accomplishments that Pelosi and other party leaders had shepherded through Congress. Even Blue Dog members who voted against major Democratic legislation and tried to keep the axis of Pelosi-Reid-Obama lost their seats, leaving only a tiny handful of conservative Democrats left in the House. In the absence of a strong message that sold the Democrats’ accomplishments to the public, the Republicans succeeded in demonizing the opposition.

In the aftermath of this year’s rout, Democrats will need to redefine themselves if they want to revive the party. And with Pelosi poised to be at the helm, the House’s Democratic minority will assuredly try to push the party to embrace, not shun, its liberal identity.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate