Can Granny Rictus McBotoxImplants Really Twist Any More Arms?

Yesterday on the Brit Hume Bret Baier show, Kirstin Powers said that Nancy Pelosi would get the votes necessary to pass this Obamination out of the House.

Krauthammer agreed (but predicted it would fail in the Senate, on reconciliation.... but that still means it passes, of course).

Powers explained her prediction: Nancy Pelosi is good at this. She's done it before on cap and tax, for example.

Well... She was good at it. She has led her caucus closer and closer to political armageddon with each of her San Francisco archliberal moves.

Are they still willing to have their arms twisted by her?

It's not just that the Democrats are headed for disaster, which they can blame on the leadership of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama. It's also that Nancy Pelosi will simply not be around much longer to grant anyone any favors in the future.

She had been Speaker of the House. She is no longer Speaker of the House. She is now soon-to-be-former Speaker of the House.

I've long wanted to post this interview with Charlie Cook. It's a week and a half old now, but it's still... ball-dippingly good.

NJ: If Obama has a communications problem as you suggest, then what should he do to reach out to the American people? Should he try to appear more populist?

Cook: I sort of reject the notion that there is a communications problem with President Obama. I think it's just fundamental, total miscalculations from the very, very beginning. Of proportions comparable to President George W. Bush's decision to go into Iraq. ...

...

And then when unemployment numbers started proving to be much, much tougher and it started becoming more clear that the stimulus package hadn't worked properly, they just kept plowing ahead on health care. And this isn't a communications problem. This is a reality problem. And I think they just made some grave miscalculations and as it became more clear that they had screwed up, they just kept doubling down their bet.

And so I think, no, this is one of the biggest miscalculations that we've seen in modern political history.

NJ: What do Democrats have to do to correct this?

Cook: I've spent the last couple of days talking to some of the brightest Democrats in the party that are not in the White House. And it's very hard to come up with a scenario where Democrats don't lose the House. It's very hard. Are the seats there right this second? No. But we're on a trajectory on the House turning over....

The whole thing is worth reading, from his diagnosis on Democrats becoming bored with silly issues like jobs and the economy and the stimulus, and so doing a botched job to rush to get back to ideological issues, to Democrats, losing, finally, the South and Border districts they've hung on to for so long forever ("They're not coming back"), to his statement that the question isn't "Where are Democrats in danger?" but rather "What few places are they safe?"

At any rate: It is now conventional wisdom that the Democrats will lose the House. Not that there is an outside chance of such. Not even that it is likely. But that they will lose the House, barring some game-changing event and barring also some weird low-probability streak of winning a bunch of very tight could-go-either-way elections.

In other words, it is 95% likely that Speaker Pelosi will not be Speaker Pelosi in January 2011. Not only won't she be Speaker, she won't even be Minority Leader -- Steny Hoyer will take that position. The caucus will be in no mood to continue on with the wildly unpopular Nancy Pelosi as the face of the party. Even though the House is dominated by liberals -- they will not reward her for calamity.

So, with regard to Madame Palomino's arm-twisting: She can't offer people a political haven -- she has admitted that it's political suicide to vote for this bill, but wants them to slit their throats anyway -- and she can't even offer them personal favors.

She's a lame duck. She won't even have a leadership post in the minority.

She'll be subchairman of the Sport Charter Fisherman International Promotion Committee or something more in line with her abilities. Her jurisdiction will be limited to tarpon.

So what the hell can Granny Rictus McBotoxImplants promise or threaten anyone with?

Oh: Partly undermining all that is that Steny Hoyer claims to believe he thinks this bill is essential, too.

But unlike Madame Palomino, who claims she has the votes, Steny Hoyer won't say he does.

posted by Ace at 05:48 PM

| Access Comments