By Jim Geraghty
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Barring some last-minute surge of support for Ohio
congressman Tim Ryan, House Democrats appear set to once again elect Nancy
Pelosi as their leader this week.
Considering the catastrophic collapse of the House
Democratic caucus over the last six years, it seems fair to ask: Why? Just how much worse could they do
with Ryan running the show?
Even if Pelosi isn’t single-handedly to blame for the
failures that have happened on her watch, it’s hard to see how she could lead
her troops back into the majority.
With Harry Reid leaving office, she’s now clearly the
least gifted communicator in the ranks of the Democratic leadership. From her
“we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it” defense of
Obamacare to her boast that the law would create 400,000 jobs “almost
immediately” to her entirely avoidable spat with then–CIA director Leon
Panetta, this is a woman with a penchant for stepping in it.
But poor communication skills are only part of Pelosi’s
problem. She’s also grown old and very rich during her time in government,
slowly becoming a populist’s paranoiac fantasy before our eyes. She literally
lives on “Billionaire’s Row” in San Francisco. She was a big fan of earmarks,
and has been accused of steering subsidies to donors and engaging in insider
trading. And voters know it, too. She’s now such an effective stand-in for
out-of-control, big-spending, out-of-touch progressivism that the National
Republican Congressional Committee uses her in swing-district television ads
every cycle.
Which brings us back to the question at hand: Why are
House Democrats keeping Pelosi in power?
In some ways, she is benefiting from her own
incompetence; a smaller, more liberal House caucus is more amenable to her
staying in place than a larger, more ideologically diverse one would be. The
sizable Democratic majority that made her the first female Speaker of the House
was built with Blue Dog Democrats such as Heath Shuler, Jason Altmire, and Brad
Ellsworth, who periodically deviated from the party line on guns and abortion.
Those moderate voices are gone now, wiped out in a succession of Republican
waves, and the result is a more homogenous caucus with greater ideological
affinity for Pelosi.
Then there’s the absence of a viable replacement. Though
the caucus is smaller and more ideologically rigid than it once was, there are
still members who think it’s time for a change at the top. But they’re not sure
Ryan is the guy. Besides that pesky allegation of public intoxication, he’s got
little name recognition and probably hasn’t spent enough time building
relationships with other House Democrats to successfully challenge Pelosi.
There are others in the caucus who have spent more time cultivating
relationships with fellow members, but they’re already in Pelosi’s corner.
And finally, whatever her other faults, it’s impossible
to argue with Pelosi’s fundraising prowess. It’s the single biggest reason
she’s risen as far as she has, in fact: From her perch in what is perhaps the
country’s most Democratic district, she’s been free to raise money for
colleagues, secure in the knowledge that her own seat will be safe forever. And
that means there are scores of Democratic House members who feel indebted to
her.
It’s easy to forget that in 2011, shortly after Democrats
lost the House in the Tea Party midterms of 2010, Shuler ran against Pelosi for
Minority Leader and won 43 votes behind closed doors. We may see a similar
result this week, with a decent number of House Democrats expressing a need for
a change but the majority of the caucus endorsing the status quo in hopes that
some outside factor boosts them back into the majority.
It’s a little like that old definition of insanity:
trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
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