SALON

Thursday, Nov 4, 2010 8:01 PM UTC

The case for Nancy Pelosi sticking around

Two days after the election, and she's still the Dems' leader. She's not thinking of staying, is she?

By

Topics: Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., War Room, 2010 Elections,

The case for Nancy Pelosi sticking aroundU.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) addresses a ceremony commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Korean War, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, June 24, 2010. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS MILITARY ANNIVERSARY)(Credit: © Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)

Before the election, I wrote that Nancy Pelosi would step down as the House’s Democratic leader if her party lost control of the chamber — and that she’d probably leave Congress altogether. And as a the expected GOP landslide played out Tuesday night, I even offered a political eulogy for the House’s first female speaker.

But it’s been two days since her party lost more than 60 House seats, and Pelosi hasn’t made any announcement, nor has anyone moved to challenge her. By contrast, when Republicans lost control of the House in the 2006 midterms, Dennis Hastert announced the next day that he’d stand down as GOP leader, making way for John Boehner, who beat back a token challenge for the minority leader’s post. So far, Pelosi has given one post-election interview, telling ABC’s Diane Sawyer on Wednesday that when it comes to her future plans, “in our caucus, we always do things by consensus. And when we have that consensus, we’ll have some announcement to make.”

Most likely, this is all a formality, and Pelosi will give up her leadership post in the next few days. Given the scale of her party’s defeat, it’s hard to imagine her staying — just as it’s hard to imagine her being able to stomach a demotion from speaker to minority leader. So why not call it a career, write a book and let history — if not today’s electorate — appreciate the significant achievements that have marked her four-year run as speaker?

That said, it wouldn’t be entirely unheard of for her to stay on. Hastert is the only speaker in modern times to retain his own district seat in an election in which his party lost control of the House, so there really aren’t a lot of precedents for this situation. After the GOP suffered unexpected losses (while retaining their majority) in 1998, Newt Gingrich stepped down as speaker and resigned his House seat — a move that caught Washington by surprise. And when Democrats lost control of the House in ’94, then-Speaker Tom Foley lost his own reelection race in Washington state, sparing him the dilemma Pelosi now faces. Before that, the speaker’s gavel was wielded by a series of Democrats who all left office voluntarily, with their party still in control (with the exception of Jim Wright, who was forced out in an ethics scandal in 1989).

But maybe, just maybe, Pelosi is thinking of Sam Rayburn, who was speaker when Democrats suffered a 55-seat drubbing and lost control of the chamber in the 1946 midterm elections. “Mr. Sam,” who had held the gavel since 1940, simply slid over to the minority leader’s post, which he held for the next two years — when Democrats, riding Harry Truman’s surprise reelection coattails, scored a 75-seat pickup, winning back the House. At that point, Republican Speaker Joe Martin became the new minority leader, while Rayburn reclaimed the top job. The two switched places again after the 1952 election, with Republicans winning the House back on Dwight Eisenhower’s coattails, and in 1954, when Rayburn and the Democrats reclaimed the chamber in Ike’s first midterm.

Given the right’s venomous demonization of her, you can imagine the satisfaction that Pelosi would take from leading her party into the 2012 election and somehow winning back the majority. But it’s not likely that she, or any Democratic leader, will be able to engineer such a quick turnaround, given that so many of the seats that the GOP won back this week were in districts that voted for John McCain in 2008 or where Barack Obama’s margin over McCain was narrow — the kinds of districts that Democrats can’t really win unless Republicans are in control of Washington and voters are upset (like in 2006 and 2008). Democrats can certainly make gains in 2012 — as they did in 1996, two years after the Gingrich “revolution” — but enough to take back the House? It’s hard to see.  Still, the idea of achieving such vindication two years from now, however unlikely, could be part of her current calculations.

Then there’s the Steny Hoyer factor. That Pelosi and Hoyer don’t get along is well known. Their rivalry literally dates back decades, to when they both interned for Maryland Sen. Daniel Brewster in the mid-1960s. Since defeating Hoyer in a 2001 leadership battle and claiming the minority leader’s post a year later, Pelosi has labored to insulate herself from an intraparty challenge, filling most top leadership positions with low-key loyalists — and moving aggressively to thwart efforts by Hoyer allies to win key posts. When Democrats won their majority in 2006, Pelosi’s first act was to support John Murtha’s campaign to oust Hoyer from the No. 2 leadership post — an effort that failed.

But because there are no other logical successors, Hoyer is now well positioned to take over for Pelosi if she leaves. Asked by Politico on Wednesday if he’ll pursue the position of minority leader, Hoyer said, “If the speaker doesn’t run, yes.” It’s possible that tensions between Pelosi and Hoyer have eased enough that she’ll agree to hand off power to him now; personal relationships on Capitol Hill can be hard to read. It’s also possible that Pelosi is looking for a way to use her remaining clout to muscle someone besides Hoyer into the top slot — perhaps explaining why she’s been mum on her plans so far. It’s also conceivable that the absence of a viable alternative to Hoyer would prompt her to stay — and that the thinner, more liberal Democratic caucus that remains after Tuesday will stand with her.

If Pelosi were to stick around, Republicans will undoubtedly react with glee, insisting that her lingering presence will cost Democrats in 2012. But that kind of talk is probably overstated. There seems to be a correlation between the visibility of House speakers and their negative poll numbers. Thus, Pelosi, like Gingrich before her, has not fared well in polls — she is, after all, the public face of a chronically maligned institution at a time of immense popular anxiety. She does make a useful caricature for Republicans in helping to motivate their base; in this sense, she might make it slightly tougher for Democrats to win back the McCain districts they lost this week in 2012. But if the economy improves and Obama is well positioned to win reelection in 2012 — like Clinton was in 1996 — Pelosi won’t be much of a liability for Democrats.

Steve Kornacki

Steve Kornacki writes about politics for Salon. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornacki More Steve Kornacki.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 76 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations