There is an old adage that goes something like this: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
If this is actually true then I don’t know who my friend is in the newly announced grudge match between Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They are both just so sweet and humble and it is hard to pick which one to root for.
First world political problems.
I have to admit I was a bit surprised yesterday when Nancy Pelosi announced that she was running for re-election to win her 19th term in Congrees. For those that are not quite sure how long that is, she is attempting to serve for a total of 38 years. My colleague Bonchie covered this here on Tuesday Nancy Pelosi Makes a Panic Move and Sets up a Showdown With Her Own Party…
The coming midterm elections are not looking good for Democrats. In fact, short of some kind of divine intervention, Joe Biden’s party is going to get absolutely boat-raced. It could stack up to be a wave election that makes 2010 look like child’s play, and I don’t say that lightly.
In the midst of that hostile environment, numerous Democrat incumbents have announced their retirements, which is usually a sure-fire sign of coming doom. You may recall all the articles from 2018 noting how Republican retirements were a very bad sign. Indeed, they did precede a blue wave, and the reverse is now occurring in 2022.
Just how bad are things? Nancy Pelosi may have given us a hint today with this cringe video (she apparently found the old “Full House” set), in which she announced that she’s running for re-election.
So after reading Bonchie’s piece I had to go back and reread what I wrote last fall that I thought Nancy was not running. Nancy Pelosi Won’t Answer if She Is Running Next Year Because the Decision Is Already Made…
Now just a little further down the article, they get to why Nancy is a bit touchy about this being asked — because she had to “allegedly” cut a deal after last November’s election to keep the gavel after the Democrats lost seats when they were all expecting to ADD to their majority.
House Democrats agitated for change to their party’s leadership following their loss of the chamber in 2016 and then losing 13 seats in 2020 after predictions indicated major gains. It created one of the slimmest Democratic majorities in decades at 222 seats to 212 for Republicans.
Pelosi won the Speakership again in an unexpectedly dramatic vote for the fourth time in January, which she has promised would be her last.
That Pelosi said she would not run again for Speaker was the worst kept rumor last December in Washington D.C. and was what kept AOC and her girl gang “The Squad” from offering a challenge to Pelosi as the top Democrat in the House last year.
How could I be wrong? How dare Nancy Pelosi oppose my opinion piece?!
So classless.
No matter, this now sets up a bit of a problem for Nancy and her wayward Squad cheer team. The progressive heroines of every whacky and kooky idea from the delusional world of academia are not fans of the 81-year-old Speaker. A quick refresher from Ballotpedia …
Support for or opposition to Pelosi returning to the speakership was a major issue for Democratic candidates in the U.S. House elections in 2018. This page contains lists of the 15 Democratic House members who did not vote for Pelosi and the Democratic House candidates who said they would oppose Pelosi or did not commit to supporting her after the 2018 elections.
The democrats after the 2018 midterm elections could afford to have 15 people not vote for Pelosi. Some of the newly elected progressives after that election, who had not yet found where the bathrooms were in the Capitol, started raising some verbal hell about how things were done under the old guard Democrats.
They of course meant, Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi may be a bit older now but she can read the polls and still understand what is shaping up here for the 2022 midterms in regards to her still being the Speaker afterward. She went through this before in the 2010 wipeout of Democrats but she hung on long enough to regain the gavel eight years later. She knows time is NOT on her side now and if the Democrats get wiped out in 10 months not only will she no longer be speaker, but she could also lose being the minority leader.
So why run again?
Good ole political pettiness.
Pelosi is part of the old school politicians that ran opponents into the ground and if you were on the same side party-wise as them, they took an odd pride in how they made political life miserable for you. This is how New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Baltimore, where Nancy is from, were run.
Almost like the mob but the mob had rules and actually helped the poor on occasion. Democrats have never actually helped the poor.
If you google anything about how much Nancy and AOC love each other you won’t find that much but you will get some super juicy stories about how much they do not like each other. That has to be the only play here for an 80+-year-old woman who has become filthy rich as an elected official and has little gas left in the tank.
She is out for her pound of political flesh from a snooty 30 something whippersnapper and AOC had better get ready for some rough water from her own side for the remainder of this year.
Thankfully, I am here for all of this and have ample popcorn to enjoy.
