As expected, outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has prevailed in retaining the top leadership position — a surprise move after many, if not most, pundits expected she would resign after the devastating loss of at least 61 seats and record low popularity ratings for both herself and Congress.
Six out of ten Americans polled have unfavorable views of Pelosi, who will now continue to be the face of the Democratic minority.
The vote is a triumph of the leadership, but it is a curious message for some voters who expected the Democrats to take a new course. The retention of Pelosi is consistent with the public line that the election was all about the economy and not a rejection of Democratic policies or measures like the national health care plan. Given the extremely low popularity both Pelosi and Congress, it is a risky move. What do you think?
Source: CNN
Ekerya,
If you think I think you’re a Christian you’ve got a long way to go.
I was originally going to point out that Hitler started the first anti-smoking campaign, maybe throw in a reference to the autobahn for good measure. Then I decided that I didn’t want to Goodwin the argument that early on, so thought about bringing up the fact that Genghis Khan was (for the time)incredibly tolerant of people with religions that were different than him. Then I remembered that most of the negative ideas we have about the elder Khan (who did not have a stately pleasure dome in Xanadu) were based on anti barbarian propaganda from China.
So I settled decided on going the other route, a man we all knew was good supporting slavery. A saint somebody-or-rather sprang to mind, and so…
Of course, I could have just said “A broken clock is right twice a day,” but cliches are so cliche.
Tootie
I 100% agree with you. I voted Democrat since Jimmy Carter but now I think the Democrats took my support for granted. I went to a Move On party last weekend that was billed as how to help Democrats respond to the election. I thought it would concern the party position but when I got there it seemed like friends of Congressmen wanting to preserve their good paying prestigious jobs.
I am currently subscribing to the Wall Street Journal and loved the headline today about massive investigations of insider trading and I’m glad DOJ prosecuted Judge Camp. The way for Democrats to regain my loyalty is through aggressive criminal prosecutions to make the world safe for honest people.
Alan:
I hope you do not posit a false choice that the economy is either in the hands of the state or the “plutocrats”.
Most businesses in America are small businesses. The reason businesses become big is because POPULATION becomes big. The customer base is billions instead of millions and the innate response to that is bigger businesses. You don’t know that there are enough small business owners to go around who have the skills and ability to supply the needs that on very large business can (which, generally, originally represents the vision of only one or two people). In your view, there would have to (to replace the one business) be thousands if not millions of small businesses people that would have to replace what one large company is able to provide.
That is not rational. It is fiction and fantasy because it cannot be determined ahead of time.
You cannot reach everyone who needs something that way (except by hoping or wishing, I suppose).
There is a myth, promoted by the greedy left, that farming is mostly big farmers. 90 percent of farms are still family owned. These small families cannot reach foreign markets like big operations can. Mess with that, even for a short period of time, and people starve to death.
You probably condemn the big agri businesses who help feed the world populations which are not able to feed themselves. There is a place for both big and small business. Where small businesses are not able to meet needs, big business can step in fill the void.
If I thought that Democrats hated the rich I would never see a Jay Rockefeller, a Kennedy, or a Kerry in political office. Leftists don’t hate the rich, they just hate the rich rightist and that is what all the whining is about. When China was poisoning our childrens toys, who did congress punish? The small domestic manufacturers and cottage industry operations or the big companies who manufacture overseas? They punished the little guy. And this was a Democrat congress that did it.
It is all about greed, but it is very much about who is greedy. The poor man who wants the rich plunder for himself can be as greedy as a rich man who has no compassion.
I’m not for lawlessness either. But I oppose theft by government as much as theft by companies or the Democrat rank and file. All of it is immoral.
I called my Reps to ask why Bush had not been impeached, and at that time the Dems didn’t hold a majority.
So then the Dems win the seats in the next election I am expecting action and instead then Nancy Pelosi says impeachment is “off the table”!!!
I am begining to believe there is only one party in the US, the Party of Big Government.
There’s a Dem branch and a Rep branch.
Ill always come here for the laughs. Keep up the good work.