On Nancy Pelosi...

There are some calling for Nancy Pelosi to resign as Democratic Leader in the U.S. House in the wake of the losses last week in GA-06 and SC-05's special elections. These people are misguided. Nancy Pelosi had absolutely no impact on the outcome of those races. Let's be clear- the Republican Party would attack anyone who was leading the Democratic Caucus in either the House or Senate, and try to blame them for everything wrong in America. If you replaced her, you still would not have won those seats. If you want to blame the DCCC for spending $30 million in a seat they probably can't ever win, with a 30 year old nominee that was a "documentary film maker," and didn't live in the district- well, I'm with you. And yes, Nancy could make massive changes over at the DCCC if she so chose- at least in theory.

Some people want to defend Pelosi though. My friend Sally writes of Pelosi:

Nancy Pelosi is an extremely effective party leader. She got ACA thru. She got every single Democrat to sign the discharge petition to reopen the government in 2013. And she has kept her caucus unanimous against every form of AHCA.

That’s why GOP wants her gone. Nancy gets it done. She beats them every time. Anyone who doesn’t get that doesn’t really understand how things work.

Sally's basically right- basically. The one time Nancy does not seem to beat the GOP is at the ballot box though, an empirical fact that cannot be denied. Nancy Pelosi was elected to the House Leadership beginning in 2001- when I was a junior in high school- as the Democratic Whip, before becoming Leader in 2003. In the past 17 years, Democrats held the majority for four years. That is not a good ratio. I obviously agree that gerrymandering and voter suppression has played a huge role in those defeats (several times the Democrats got more votes and didn't win), but a shrewd leader changes strategies to win. I realize that there are forces in the Democratic Party that aren't crazy about running moderates, white guys, or any other type of candidate that allows us to win outside of heavily urban settings, but here's reality- Congress has a geography balance against us. If you want to govern, and help the people who we represent, you have to run candidates who can win seats. Nancy's not all to blame here, but she's the most powerful Democrat in Washington, and so there's an argument that she should have done more to win.

Ultimately though, I side with Sally and others who want Nancy Pelosi to stay. She's incredibly effective at the legislative game, the main part of this job. Replacing her right now is incredibly dangerous- we could end up with any number of very bad options who hurt the party. It's important that we don't gloss over the actual negatives of Nancy's tenure though- the lost elections, the pure length of time she's been leader- just because we want her to stay though. Nancy Pelosi has been a great leader of the party, and has the achievements to verify that, but the House Democrats have lead the House of Representatives for just four of the last 23 years- which means changes must be made by whoever is the leader.