She Needs to Be There

The longer people stay in a political position, the more people can take shots at them.

Nancy Pelosi knows this. She accepts this as part of the acquired baggage.

But it's exactly because of this that she not only deserves to be Speaker of the House again, she is sorely needed in that position.

I'll use a single word to justify it: Obamacare. She was the major shepherd who drove that controversial legislation through the House in 2010. It has withstood all criticism. It has withstood not only universal Republican passive aggression against it then, but it has withstood all Republican attempts to defeat it since--including more than 50 attempts to scuttle it in the House while she couldn't lead it. It has withstood withering attacks from a clueless, cruel president who doesn't know what he's doing and doesn't care.

It has stood not only the test of time, it has stood against all that could possibly be organized against it. So has she. She still stands there, an effective spokeswoman for an otherwise rudderless party.

She has been demonized as much, if not more, than the other significant, nationally-based woman who couldn't survive the otherwise unconscionable (except they had to have a conscience to have considered the depravity of it) bashing and vilification of her: Hillary Clinton.

But that was different, in a way. Clinton, as qualified to be president as she was (and still is), spun her political quilt in no small way on the loom of her husband's success. She might have done the rest herself, of course, but that distinguishes her from Pelosi, who has risen through the ranks all by herself.

She got a lift from rubbing elbows with nobody. She's smart, she's wily, and she wasn't born yesterday. Her House seat remains sacrosanct: She pulled 84% of the vote earlier this month. Remember Eric Cantor, House majority leader? He got clobbered by someone two years ago--Dave Brat, who lost to a Democratic female the other day. Remember Tom Foley? He got ousted as Speaker because he lost in Washington State. So, too, with Tom Daschle, who lost his Senate majority leader position due to defeat in South Dakota.

Not Pelosi. And yet, the newbies in the House, many of them women, want change across the board. They are not satisfied with simply being the change itself; they want something else to represent it and unleash it for all it's worth. They believe that taking on this awful person who is our president will take a different approach.

I'm not surprised. New, younger members of any organization come to it with fresh eyes--fresh, and inexperienced. They have not seen what insiders see. It is exactly why term limits would threaten, not strengthen, the House: A sense of institutional history and continuation would eventually disappear. Congresspeople, like those legislators in states in which term limits have been locked in, would approach passing bills with a sense of urgency that ignores or by-passes the greater concern of future effects. We've had far too much of that.

Campaign rhetoric be damned: The country needs insiders in Washington as badly as it needs fresh faces. As fired up as the newbies are, they will need some hand-holding and encouragement, because things are never quite what they seem in a building in which the vital conversations always happen behind closed doors. "Step in here, please; we'll be right with you....No calls for the next twenty minutes, okay?"

Having lobbied in Washington and several state legislatures off-and-on for a number of years and been behind a different set of closed doors for briefings that have raised many an eyebrow, I can tell you that within the fierce competitiveness for power in the places where it counts the most, the dynamics of the legislative process churn endlessly, in kaleidoscopic, sometimes split-second whirlwinds of interaction. To simply keep up with it all is, in itself, an acquired and vital skill that cannot be mastered quickly.

It is also addictively fascinating and politically, it's like walking a razor blade. The more you get it, the more you believe you need it and you'd be right: You have to have it to retain and expand any sense of efficacy. But you also have to stick around to enjoy the delicious torture of it.

As urgent as the new moment is--and there is no denying that--Democrats need someone who knows the institution, knows people who run the committees better than most, and knows what to hear from people who never really say what they mean: the very essence of politics, which has as much to do with what is not said as it does about what is.

Am I pining for the same-old, same-old? Not at all. What the new members represent is first and foremost, a bit closer to the way the country now looks to the rest of us, which cannot be a bad thing; and second, energy and enthusiasm to stand up to the disgusting corruption and bungling with which we have been skewered for nearly two years now. More experienced Democrats, now at the heads of committees, will lead that charge. To have listened to their interviews, they are more than ready for it.

Our ridiculous president will do his best to vilify, label and attack whomever is at the helm of the speakership. Nancy Pelosi appears to be too ripe for the expected onslaught. But again, do not sell this outrageous man short. He would do the same to any substitute that the Democrats might elect in Pelosi's stead. Could he or she withstand it?

This ongoing showdown is perhaps the stage upon which 45 will make his last political stand--for either vilification, validation, or the wiles of destruction. His ultimate defeat will depend upon one thing for which his status is now exposed, due to his own clueless clumsiness: His relevance. Such a question was raised for Bill Clinton after his first mid-term defeat, but Speaker Newt Gingrich engaged in overreach to bring him down and paid dearly for it.

I don't see Pelosi doing the same. I see her far more measured and tactical, resisting the temptation to grab too much power too soon. That would reflect the wisdom she has acquired, though it might infuriate some within her own caucus. Instead of being brought down, she may in fact be the vehicle that will finally toss 45 into the ditch.

Truly, there will be attempts to bully and intimidate with and without tweets. She knows that's coming. I think he thinks that her gender will imply weakness. He'll be wrong this time. The shock factor that inevitably served as a blockage to prevent Hillary Clinton from effectively counteracting his crudeness is gone now. The same-old, same-old will be coming from him, not her, and more and more of us will grow very tired of it.

We cannot depend on Robert Mueller to deliver salvation. He has found what he has found, and the issue of impeachment may or may not rest on it. What Democrats should (and here it says must) do is attempt to legislate and investigate, set the agenda for the discussions and ensure the insults, and render 45 to be the pointless slug that he actually is, out of touch with what the country really wants. If impeachment emerges as an option, it will do so itself, such that it becomes so necessary that all other noise will be muted--even in a more radicalized, right-wing Republican House caucus without the sycophantic Paul Ryan as placeholder.

The slow revelation of 45's uselessness could have its intended effects in 2020, and by then there would be little he could do about it. He might hide behind Mitch McConnell for a while, but those campaigns are coming up, too, and the Senate Republicans up for re-election will be confronted with the same problems as a few Democrats did in red-leaning states.

But that hopeful scenario can't happen without a steadying, skillful influence at the helm of the new cornerstone of at least moderation, if not outright progressivism, that has been so badly needed in Washington. We need someone who can mediate where it can be done, and take stands where it must be done. That person is Nancy Pelosi. Let us hope that the conversations now going on will direct new House Democratic members to seeing the greater wisdom of that choice. It's still our country, and it's still at stake.

Be well. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark