Pelosi is not responsible for house democrats getting elected (or not)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

Her role is to manage legislative agenda in her party. So as majority leaders she gathered the votes needs to pass Obama's agenda (ACA, Dodd-Frank, bailing out car industry, repeal DADT etc.) as minority leader her job will be to stop as far as possible Trump's agenda (like she stopped bush from privatizing SS)

If you want the heads of someone to roll the DNC head and the DCCC head are heads you should be aiming for. The DNC head is already being debated, here is info on the DCCC http://dccc.org/about/

Pelosi's head is not the head you are looking for.

i know i have said this before, but it seems that no one read it last time. being more hopeful about this time.

[Jersey Devil]

1. You talk as though she is some kind of shepherd leading the flock

The truth is that the "Minority Leader" is largely a symbolic post. The position has no real power. That said, the MSM points to the Leader as the face of the Democratic Party when there is no one else (except Schumer in the Senate) in a higher position, like a Democratic President.

I do not think the post is all that important one way or the other. But I think under the current circumstances our symbolic leaders should be firebrands and she is clearly not that.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

4. It took a lot of negotiating to get some dems

From conservative areas to vote for obamas initiatives. That is her job.

[Jersey Devil]

7. Actually, that is the Whip's job, not the Leader

The Leader is the go-to person that the MSM seeks out whenever they want/need an opposing viewpoint to that of the Republicans. That is where the Leader is important. In that role I believe Pelosi is sorely deficient.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

8. The whip and the leader work on this together

And yes she does represent us to msm.

[pnwmom]

14. Get real. The Whip doesn't do it all alone. Her work was also key. n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

20. Yep, not a big fan of hers...

but the job is not symbolic. The Whip operates at the Leaders request.

[mcar]

2. Amazing, isn't it?

A woman who has done her job extremely well isn't good enough because she didn't do someone else's job. But an inexperienced man is needed because, change.

I keep saying it: sometimes there are not enough walls.

[Me.]

21. All Anyone Needs To Do Is Ask Obama

If she was necessary to him and was the one person who could get done what he wanted

[geek tragedy]

3. She has exactly zero role to play in the next two years--she's irrelevant as House Minority

Leader under a unified Republican government.

The larger issue is that the Democrats calcified leadership team and structure. Hoyer and Pelosi have been the top two Democrats since 2002. Clyburn, the #3, is from the same generation as they are.

Together they have entrenched themselves at the expense of grooming future generations of leaders.

Here's a thought:

Who's going to replace Pelosi, Hoyer, and Clyburn? Nobody knows, because they haven't cultivated their replacements, they've cultivated loyalists.

She's failed as a party builder and has utterly neglected the future of the conference and the party.

Her re-election as House Minority leader was her last victory, and it will do exactly zero good for the party or the country.

[NWCorona]

25. Your post is what the people in power really need to hear.

I respect Pelosi and I am fine with her retaining a leadership role but you hit the nail on the head. There has been zero grooming of the new leadership and now we are seeing the results.

[Midwestern Democrat]

33. Agreed. For me, the big shock was that she held onto the leadership after 2010.

How does that happen? Does anyone think Tom Foley would have dared try to hold onto the leadership after the 1994 disaster had he won re-election that year? Denny Hastert had to relinquish the leadership after 2006. Dick Gephardt had to relinquish the leadership in 2002 after the Dems failed to win back the House after eight years on his watch.

Here's a perfect example of why Pelosi is the wrong leader for the party: in 2008, she used her power to get John Dingell removed as Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee for the sin of wanting to balance environmental legislation with the need to protect manufacturing jobs. Who'd she replace him with? Henry Waxman, who represented Beverly Hills and the other affluent parts of West LA. How tone deaf is that?

[randome]

5. That's beside the point. She is wrongly declared the face of evil by the GOP.

So long as she continues in her current position, the GOP will draw support from that unfair categorization of her. Unless someone is a genius at something, no one should stay in this important a job into their 70s. They should have the grace and the wit and the wisdom to stand aside for the next generation.

Pelosi may be effective in some ways but she is no genius. What we need are more Obamas and more geniuses.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. We can't win the votes of people who think she is evuk

We can win the votes of people who did not vote or voted third party. Doubt most of them know pelosi.

Conservatives hate pelosi and that is fine.

[randome]

9. Not all GOPers buy into the notion that Pelosi is evil.

But they find it easier to go along with the tide. You're right, we can't win the votes of the die-hard haters. But they aren't our target. We want to peel off the relatively few rational-minded who currently will believe what they are spoon-fed.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[La Lioness Priyanka]

12. You said it yourself, rational minded don't hate pelosi

[randome]

16. I don't hate her either. But she doesn't thrill me, either. We need more who can thrill.

Working on an assembly line doing the same job for 40 years is admirable in a very prosaic and limited sense but we're talking about an 'assembly line' that has immense ramifications for everyone.

The GOP has wrongly but successfully cast her as part of what they're fighting. It's been going on for too long. We need to make some wholesale changes.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Jersey Devil]

15. Yes, unfair, but she has been transformed into a caracature

It is not very different than how Hillary was demonized.

When the media turns to get Democratic input on any issue to "balance" their news and Democrats want to influence voters, is Nancy Pelosi the one we want up front and center to that that? I just don't think so.

[randome]

17. Unfair it is for both Clinton and Pelosi. But Clinton lost so obviously their tactics worked.

We can't just hold our breath and stomp our feet and insist that we be treated more fairly from now on. And you're right, Pelosi is on the talk shows too much as it is and she is not the one we need to bring back the millennials.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Cha]

10. Yeah, as you stated in an earlier post.. Nancy is not gonna

be their sacrificial lamb.

[PatsFan87]

11. I said this in another thread but I'll say it here too...

As a party, we need to take a step back and understand that how something looks to other people is important. Obama is not going to be in office next year. Hillary Clinton will not be in the spotlight either. In 2018, the person Republicans will be tying Democratic house candidates to is Nancy Pelosi. Having an "elitist", establishment, "San Francisco liberal" insider coming from one of the wealthiest districts is rather tone deaf. House candidates in swing districts and Republican leaning districts will be tied to her relentlessly by their opponents and the prospect of winning the seat will be tough for them. It would have been a LOT easier being tied to someone from Ohio representing a rural rustbelt district. I mean, what can Republicans really say about that guy?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. They might not say anything but I don't trust that

Relatively conservative democrat to be able to stand up against trump.

[LWolf]

18. She is responsible for

taking the impeachment of GWB off the table. I was done with her then.

I'm still done with her.

[randome]

19. I gave her the benefit of the doubt then. But it's clear we need new faces in the party.

We lost. To Trump. If that doesn't scream 'wholesale change', I don't know what would.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Initech]

22. Yeah I'm for a complete overhaul, and we need to take back the media.

I think that's the biggest problem, and it didn't used to be until the republicans hijacked it back in the 90's with Limbaugh and AM hate radio. If we take back the media we can trounce any candidate they got.

[NWCorona]

26. That is one of the things that gives me the most pause with Pelosi

But I am confident that it wasn't "her" decision. She was just the one to utter those unfortunate words. Nancy had a role to play.

[LWolf]

32. If so, that gives me MORE pause.

If our leaders are just following someone's (whose?) directions, directions that do not benefit us or move us forward, how can we ever trust them to represent us?

[tritsofme]

23. Ummm...strangely bizarre downplaying of Pelosi's power and influence over the caucus...

Who exactly...do you think appointed the head of the DCCC? It only became an elected position in the last few days...

[NWCorona]

27. Do you have any back up information? I'd like to read up on that?

[tritsofme]

28. I was wrong, prior to today, the DCCC chair was a position handpicked by Pelosi.

It hasn't been a few days yet.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/308292-stage-set-for-lujan-challenge-atop-dems-campaign-arm

[Tatiana]

24. I think she sees her role as more than managing legislation. She likes the perceived power.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi promised Wednesday that when her party takes over, the new majority will not attempt to remove President Bush from office, despite earlier pledges to the contrary from others in the caucus.

“I have said it before and I will say it again: Impeachment is off the table,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said during a news conference.

Pelosi also said Democrats, despite complaining about years of unfair treatment by the majority GOP, “are not about getting even” with Republicans.

http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2006/11/08/cq_1916.html

JOY BEHAR: You’ve ruled against impeaching George Bush and Dick Cheney, and now Kucinich is trying to pass that. Why do you insist on not impeaching these people, so that the world and America can really see the crimes that they’ve committed?

REP. NANCY PELOSI: Well, I think that it — I think it was important, when I became Speaker — and it’s, by the way, a very important position — President, Vice President, Speaker of the House — I saw it as my responsibility to try to bring a much divided country together to the extent that we could. I thought that impeachment would be divisive for the country.
In terms of what we wanted — set out to do, we wanted to raise the minimum wage, give the biggest increase in veterans benefits to veterans in the seventy-seven-year history, then pass research for stem cell research, all of that. This week, we’re going to pass equal pay for equal work. It has been a long time in coming — pay equity. We’re going to pass legislations for product safety, for toys that children put in their — there’s an agenda that you have to get done. You have to try to do it in a bipartisan way. The President has to sign it. If somebody had a crime that the President had committed, that would be a different story.

https://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/30/house_speaker_nancy_pelosi_defends_her

There is nothing in her demeanor or past actions that indicates she has the skill set and willingness to lead a vigorous and much-needed opposition to the pResident-elect. She is going to be the de-facto face of the Democratic party, along with Chuck Shumer and she's not a very inspiring one, to be honest.

[PufPuf23]

29. Nancy Pelosi does not function in a vacuum.

You may not think so, but it is relatively certain that Pelosi does not perceive herself as operating in a vacuum separate from the overall agenda and success or failure of the Democratic party.

Nancy Pelosi is very much the Democratic partisan.

There is no democratic legislative agenda to consider if there are not Democratic (and Democratic sympathetic) members of the House to formulate, build support, and vote on legislation.

Your opinion is simplistic, not realistic, and naïve.

I am a lifelong Democratic member and voter from California and generally have looked favorably towards Pelosi but have never quite come to an understanding nor acceptance about why Pelosi took "impeachment off the table" regards GWB.

Most of the trajectory of the USA in the 21st century has occurred because GWB was placed into office and subsequent failed policy.

[Hekate]

30. Thanks, Lioness. It's really disheartening to find this level of ignorance here...

I sincerely hope at least some people here learn the facts.

Others are just too deep into having tantrums and wanting to kick Mommy's shins for not being all-powerful.

[dmosh42]

31. I still remember a bill that was pushed by my retiree group that protected pensions and was....

sponsored by a Ma. rep who tried to get it to the floor for a vote.(2008 or 9) The Dems controlled the House under Pelosi, but the bill never got out of the committee. My union(CWA) was behind it also, so
shows they were in big business pockets already which was a big change from the post WW2 era when they relied on labor to get elected.

[alarimer]

34. No that's the job of the DNC, which failed miserably in the last 8 years.

After being successful under Dean.

Minority leader has to be someone from a safe district, so that they are less likely to lose when targeted. California (and SF in particular) is safe for Democrats.

You can't get some yahoo from Ohio to do it because they cannot be vocal in opposition. And Tim Ryan, being a Blue Dog, would likely have sided with Republicans as often as not.

You can't just say you want "fresh blood" and new leadership. There is a reason seniority plays a role in these decisions and you can't just burn down the house every time you lose as a party. That way leads to failure.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

35. Agreed. DNC and dccc.