New Boss Same As The Old Boss

“We didn’t lose the election because of me. Our members do not accept that.”
-- Nancy Pelosi

“That is why you failed.”
-- Yoda

As predicted, the House Democrats will re-elected Nancy Pelosi as their leader. Clearly they learned nothing from the election. Nevertheless, there are a couple of interesting aspects to this whole affair, including the possible future of Heath Shuler. Who?

1. The Democrats lost because of Pelosi.

The Democrats got into power and ran wild. During the election, Obama tried to sell himself as a break with the crazy tribal politics of the Democratic Party. Pelosi and her crew tried to sound like moderates too, attacking the Republicans as big spenders and as the party that wants to tax the middle class. And Rham Emanuel ran around the country trying to find conservatives to run as Democrats in Republican districts.

So you can imagine the public was somewhat surprised when the House, under Pelosi’s leadership, tried to tax the economy to death, spend the budget to death, strangle our health care system to death, and breathe life back into the most malicious zombie of them all. . . the unions. What’s more, they did this even though they knew the Senate would stop almost all of it, and even though they knew Obama had no stomach to offer them political cover.

The public was not amused and they took it out on the Democrats in November. Indeed, the public inflicted an historic defeat on Pelosi and her crew. Pelosi wants to blame the economy, but if it was just the economy, then the Senate also would have experienced an historic change. . . it didn’t. Moreover, Pelosi doesn’t seem to understand that she bears the responsibility for the economy. Having two years under Obama and four years under Pelosi to impose economic policy tends to give one that responsibility.

2. The Democrats are heading in the wrong direction.

With almost all the moderate Democrats losing their seats, the Democrats were always going to have a hard time realizing what went wrong and correcting themselves. Those that remain are blinded by ideology The re-election of Pelosi to their leadership (indeed the reelection of the entire leadership without change) and the disclaiming of any responsibility for their defeat indicate that they have not heard a word of the message the voters sent them. Thus, expect them to move further left and continue to scare the public.

And for those who point to the Republicans’ rebound in 2010 as evidence that Pelosi could rebound, let me point out a problem with the analogy. The Republicans were weighed down by a deeply unpopular President in 2008 and a horrible candidate. But by 2010, both of those factors had disappeared and the Republicans actually caught a tailwind from an unpopular Democratic President. Pelosi et al., on the other hand, will still be weighed down by Obama in 2012 and possibly 2016.

3. The Very Strange Case of Heath Shuler.

Finally, we come to the strange move by Heath Shuler. Shuler, for those who don’t know, is a Democratic Representative from North Carolina. Before that, he was famous for being the Washington Redskins’ draft bust who head butted a wall on national television and injured himself. Shuler is running against Pelosi for the leadership even though he has no chance to win. Why do this?

Several thoughts come to mind. First, North Carolina will be redistricting and he may find himself with more Republicans in his new district. It will help him to have stood up to Pelosi. But here’s some speculation for you. . .

When Shuler first ran for the House, the media asked a couple of his ex-teammates what they thought of his run. One teammate, his former roommate for road games, said that he were surprised Schuler ran as a Democrat because Shuler was ultra conservative. It is true that Shuler has not fully lived up to that in the House, but he is one of the more conservative Democrats. And in a state that is slowly trending Republican, and with the Republicans controlling redistricting, Shuler may be the first House member to jump parties. Indeed, little about him fits in the current Democratic Party, except that being a Democrat was the only way he was going to get elected in 2008. So what better springboard than to make a run at the leadership on behalf of returning the party to the center, and then jumping ship when he “reluctantly” concludes that the party has left him and will never return?

It’s just a thought, but it makes sense. And here’s a further thought. . . if he pulls it off, look for Shuler to run for President as a Republican at some point.