WASHINGTON — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wants Democrats to remember who was in charge when they won the majority back from House Republicans in 2006 when they vote for their new leader after Thanksgiving.
Pelosi, facing a challenge from Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, is also looking at complaints within her caucus from junior members who say they are too often marginalized or completely sidelined when it comes to strategy. The 76-year-old California Democrat told Politico in an interview she is listening to her members and that changes will happen.
“Yes, I have been listening to members. Some of this they have already empowered me to do, and some of this is analogous to 2005-06,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi told reporters last Thursday that Democrats’ current situation of major election losses and remaining in the minority should not be viewed as something that is completely unprecedented, but instead as an opportunity, explaining that the party in power at the White House seems to trigger a change over the party in power in Congress — a recent pattern she and the rest of the caucus is counting on for the near future.
“In 2005 and 2006 I orchestrated the take back of the House of Representatives. I’m very, very proud of that. And as I said, we see that as an opportunity now. And when President Clinton was president, Republicans took the House,” She said.
She continued, “When President Bush was president the Democrats took the House. When President Obama was president, Republicans took the House. So we have an opportunity. It doesn’t mean any guarantee, but it means we will do very hard work. So I’m proud to have the opportunity. I know how to do it to get it done.”
“I have over 2/3 of the caucus supporting me. It’s a funny thing in a caucus or any place. When somebody challenges you, your supporters turn out both internally and in the caucus and in the country. Whether it’s supporters at the grassroots level, financial supporters, intellectual resources to us,” she said.
The Daily Caller sent out inquiries to the majority of the caucus, and as of Tuesday morning most are standing by Pelosi for leader.
Although Pelosi recognized Thursday that the party needed to focus on blue collar voters more for the next election cycle, she said there were some aspects of the election that were not the party’s fault.
“As members in there said, we cannot be taking the full responsibility for what happened in the election. We have to do our after action review thoroughly and see what we could have done differently but a lot of it was beyond our control.”
Pelosi sent a “Dear Colleague letter” to her caucus Monday reiterating the party’s 2005-2006 glory days in the House and how she plans to carbon copy the plan from that era to take back the lower chamber.
Republicans won the House in 1994, employing the “Contract with America” campaign, after 40 years of majority control under the Democrats. However, the GOP lost the House to the Democrats by 2006 after a long campaign of being accused of being “drunk with power” and overspending taxpayer money.
House Speaker Paul Ryan appeared concerned that old habits of a total Republican government returned when he put the kibosh on exuberant Republican members post election who were talking about bringing back earmarks.
One source told The Hill, “[The Speaker] said we just had a ‘drain the swamp’ election and cannot turn right around and bring back earmarks behind closed doors.”