WASHINGTON, D.C. (Texas Insider Report) — Just before Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the U.S. House over a decade ago, Republican strategist Dan Schnur told NPR, “If you’re trying to warn voters against a Democrat vote, you can say ‘San Francisco Values,’ you can mention Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the point you make in almost a verbal shorthand is to say, ‘Hey look, these are tax-raising, terrorist-loving, ultra-liberal Democrats who aren’t like you and me.’”
So it’s been for the last 12 years. Pelosi’s name has been brandished in countless attack ads against Democrats all across the nation.Last election cycle USA Today reported that a third of all GOP ads for the House featured the Democrat Speaker – up from 9% in 2016 and 13% in 2014.
Some Democrats fear the strategy is working, costing the party votes and possibly endangering the predicted Joe Biden victory.
“People pretend that it isn’t a problem, but it’s a problem that exists,” Representative Brian Higgins, a New York Democrat, told The Washington Post.
Even if Democrats maintain their majority in the House, Republican consultant Ken Spain says, “It could be the difference between having a razor-thin majority, and a governing majority. It’s a lot easier to move legislation when you have a cushion of votes to work with.”
To move House legislation, the party will need a House leader – but it’s not clear, amid a growing whipered mutiny, that Pelosi will even retain the position. Nor is there a clear alternative.
That’s why the real Pelosi conundrum for Democrats isn’t on the campaign trail; it’s in the House come January.
This opposition to Pelosi’s leadership did not appear overnight. Dissent has grown slowly for years, and it now seems to unite the party’s left and moderate wings.
Left-wing candidates tend to oppose Pelosi because they find her fearsome “San Francisco Values” not very far to the left at all. While left-wing and moderate Democrats seem unified in their disdain for Pelosi, there is no clear unity candidate to replace her as leader.Many Democratic voters might not either, given evidence that the party’s base now views socialism more favorably than capitalism.
