Thaindian News

November 20, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): Democratic Nancy Pelosi was the American House’s Speaker under the guidance of whom the Democratic Party endured a thrashing in 62 electoral seats for the House in the recent congressional elections on November 2. The comprehensive rout in the House elections has provided numerical superiority in the House to the conservative opposition party, the Republicans. Notwithstanding this rather inefficient recent record, the Democrats of the House, their power now considerably enfeebled, have elected Nancy Pelosi as the Minority Leader. Pelosi has warded off a challenge from the traditionalist North Carolinian Democrat, Heath Shuler, who was also, formerly, a NFL quarterback. Pelosi attained endorsement from the potent Californian Democratic delegation, especially, by those old hand Democrats, who surround her San Franciscan district. Pelosi triumphed in the battle against Shuler by the score of 150-43 and will embrace her new responsibility in January 2011.

Infuriated moderate Democrats, who were pasted in the Congressional elections, launched a scathing attack on Pelosi, the exiting Speaker. The Democrats now are in a minority in the House and are generally on the liberal side.

Evidence of the exasperation among the Democratic workforce was seen in a move by two broadminded Democratic representatives, the Oregonian Peter DeFazio and the Ohioan Marcy Kaptur, who requested a postponement in the leadership election until December to enable the members to analyze their thrashing in a profounder manner. Many House members deem that Pelosi has validated the political catastrophe as a problematic byproduct of campaign expenditure by inimical groups and ineffective PR. But these Representatives articulate that she has failed to reevaluate the incorrect and extreme choices she made in concert with the White House. Nevertheless, other Democrats such as the Ohioan Tim Ryan, has stated that he lauds Pelosi for standing up to Obama, who has demonstrated unfortunately a leaning towards Republican standpoints recently on the extension of Bush-era tax cuts.

The 70-year-old Pelosi has stunned the American polity by declining to resign from the race for Minority Leadership, which the other Speakers have done subsequent to tinier electoral defeats in the last 20 years. Pelosi, who became the initial female to acquire the Speakership, proved to be a pugnacious opponent of George Bush as the Minority Leader, as she derailed Bush’s agenda to enlist private accounts to social security.

Floridian Democratic Representative, Allen Boyd, beaten recently, was, however, rather critical of Pelosi, stating that her enormous unpopularity nationally was responsible for the Democratic defeats in 62 seats. Democratic Representative, Joe Donnelly, has mentioned that he placed his vote in favor of Shuler. Donnelly has declared that the House Democrats require a transformed headship and that the pounding in the recent House elections is a signal from the American electorate to the Democrats that a fresh direction is necessary for the popularity of the Democrats. He has uttered that he expected Pelosi to not be in the race for Minority Leadership. She should have allowed a fresh voice. Donnelly has mentioned that he, via his vote, backed a temperate and less confrontational Democratic agenda. Donnelly has articulated that the miscellany of the opinions in the Democratic Party is one of its strengths and that he desired to witness that miscellaneousness in the composition of the Democratic leadership in the new House.