Time for Pelosi to take a victory lap
It isn’t on Rolling Stone’s list of 2018’s biggest farewell tours, but it’s time. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and Assistant Minority Leader Jim Clyburn should announce that for the next three months, they are going to travel the country and campaign like heck, raise lots of money and make sure Democrats win a majority of House seats in November — and that after the election, all of them will step down from their positions to make room for a new generation of Democratic leaders.
Pelosi is 78, Clyburn is 78, Hoyer is 79, and it’s time for their Farewell Victory Tour. Pelosi has been Democratic House leader for 16 years. She said Sunday that “I think I am the best person for the job.” Yet her record is mixed at best.
Democrats have been in the House majority for only four of Pelosi’s 16 years. On her watch, their number has been among the lowest since Herbert Hoover was president. As speaker, Pelosi repeatedly imperiled moderates from swing districts, forcing them to take needlessly tough votes, and in the 2010 election, Democrats lost more than 60 seats and their briefly held majority. Most political leaders with that kind of track record would have been gone long ago.
President Donald Trump and his party, meanwhile, are riddled with scandals and corruption; the nation is suffering Trump fatigue, and polls show voters are predisposed to choose Democrats. Only Pelosi and her team could threaten this blue wave. It will be political malpractice if she refuses to step aside.
Trump and GOP have nothing but Pelosi.
Republicans are not running on their records; they have almost nothing to say except for attacking Pelosi in television ads. The president himself tweeted sarcastically the other day that Democrats should give Pelosi “a 4th chance” because “She is trying very hard & has every right to take down the Democrat Party if she has veered too far left!”
Take her out of the equation and the odds of Democrats retaking the House, already pretty good, go up exponentially. As Republican consultant Ken Spain told The Washington Post, Democrats are “going to leave seats on the table” as long as Pelosi remains the face of their party.
A new online poll showed that only a quarter of Americans think Pelosi should stay as leader if the Democrats take back the House. About half of Democrats and 79% of independents say she should be replaced.
So far at least 27 Democratic House candidates won’t say if they would support Pelosi for leader and many admit privately she is a drag on the ticket. One of those who won’t commit is Danny O’Connor, currently fighting to win a special election in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District against Republican Troy Balderson. With about 3,500 provisional ballots still to be counted, Balderson holds less than a 1 percentage point lead. The seat has been in Republican hands for more than three decades and was also heavily gerrymandered to favor Republicans, so the closeness of this race has the GOP spooked.
O’Connor has called for a change in congressional leadership, the same message delivered by Democrat Conor Lamb, who won a special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District earlier this year.
Democrats have to flip 23 seats in order to win the majority. According to the Cook Political Report, there are currently 10 Republican seats where the Democrats have a good chance of winning, 27 seats considered to be a toss-up and about an equal number where Republicans are vulnerable.
It is undoubtedly true that a great deal of the vitriol directed at Pelosi has to do with her gender, just as it did with Hillary Clinton. That’s why this needs to be an equal opportunity clean sweep.
There is plenty of talent among Democratic House members. Some are already in leadership posts, such as Linda Sanchez and Eric Swalwell of California and Cedric Richmond of Louisiana. Others with potential include Tim Ryan of Ohio, who challenged Pelosi for the leadership position two years ago; Joseph P. Kennedy III, Seth Moulton and Katherine Clark of Massachusetts; Hakeem Jeffries and Kathleen Rice from New York; Cheri Bustos from Illinois; and Ruben Gallego from Arizona.
According to the Pew Research Center, 68% of registered voters say which party controls Congress will be a factor in their vote in November. Because of Trump and the need for the checks and balances called for in the Constitution, this could be one of the most important elections of our lifetimes. The stakes are just too high for the Democrats to blow it. The party’s House leaders can make sure they don’t.
Linda Killian is the founder and executive director of Independent Americans United and author of “The Swing Vote: The Untapped Power of Independents.” Her commentary was first published by USA TODAY.