On Monday, House Democrats overwhelmingly voted in favor of making Nancy Pelosi the House minority leader. This is somewhat unconventional, as usually, after losing an election, leaders step down from office, but that didn't happen in this case. Pelosi served as Speaker of the House since 2006, but of course the Democrats are no longer the majority party in the House as of the 2010 midterm election. The article talks about why the Democrats would want to elect Pelosi, an "unpopular leader who just carried them through one of the worst election drubbings in decades." Although the article mostly has a positive attitude toward Pelosi, that quote surprised me. I didn't think that Pelosi was that much of an unpopular leader; I knew that she had been receiving flak from both sides, from the right because they just don't agree with her ideologically, and from the left for being unsuccessful at pushing the Democratic agenda. However, Pelosi has been an extremely effective Democratic leader; I think that many of the successes of the Obama presidency so far are attributable in large part to her. For example, she worked extremely diligently with House Democrats get the health care bill passed in the House last year. In my opinion, much of the criticism and attacks directed toward Pelosi so far have been unfair and undeserved. What do you guys think about the decision to make Pelosi minority leader? Were the Democrats right to make her leader, or should they have gone with a change, seeing as the election showed that the electorate is clearly unhappy with the current leadership?Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Pelosi to be Democratic Minority Leader in House
On Monday, House Democrats overwhelmingly voted in favor of making Nancy Pelosi the House minority leader. This is somewhat unconventional, as usually, after losing an election, leaders step down from office, but that didn't happen in this case. Pelosi served as Speaker of the House since 2006, but of course the Democrats are no longer the majority party in the House as of the 2010 midterm election. The article talks about why the Democrats would want to elect Pelosi, an "unpopular leader who just carried them through one of the worst election drubbings in decades." Although the article mostly has a positive attitude toward Pelosi, that quote surprised me. I didn't think that Pelosi was that much of an unpopular leader; I knew that she had been receiving flak from both sides, from the right because they just don't agree with her ideologically, and from the left for being unsuccessful at pushing the Democratic agenda. However, Pelosi has been an extremely effective Democratic leader; I think that many of the successes of the Obama presidency so far are attributable in large part to her. For example, she worked extremely diligently with House Democrats get the health care bill passed in the House last year. In my opinion, much of the criticism and attacks directed toward Pelosi so far have been unfair and undeserved. What do you guys think about the decision to make Pelosi minority leader? Were the Democrats right to make her leader, or should they have gone with a change, seeing as the election showed that the electorate is clearly unhappy with the current leadership?
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2 comments:
I agree with you in that Pelosi has, in general, been a successful Democratic leader. I also believe that the Democratic party also believes that her time as Speaker has been a relatively successful period. Why bother changing a good thing? This explains to me why the Democrats kept Pelosi in as minority leader.
I definitely agree with you Rashmi. I have always thought of Pelosi as a Democratic whip because she is effective and put-together but not as overtly-threatening as some of the past whips (Gingrich por ejemplo. He reminds me of a lizard). I just feel that the criticism against her from both ends of the political spectrum were too harsh, especially the criticism from her own party. And also, I feel that she has been the unfortunate victim of sexism because she is confident woman. Even if she was "unpopular", she deserves a longer chance to lead the Democrats since speakers stay in office for a long time.
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