Now that the Democrats have achieved, at this writing, 33-seat and two-seat majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate respectively, it is time to put up or shut up.
It is well-documented - ad nauseum by the more conservative elements of the Republican Party - that Nancy Pelosi, potentially the first female Speaker of the House, is a liberal from the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. A prominent tactic of those in power in the Republican Party - read: Karl Rove or Dick Cheney - was to use the specter of the Lady from San Francisco as Speaker to scare conservatives into ignoring the more glaring faults of the GOP and vote the base. (One such target was Heath Shuler, the former NFL quarterback, who ran for and won a seat in North Carolina as a Democrat. Mr. Shuler is anything but liberal.) It clearly did not work.
In order for the Democrats to govern effectively - and preserve their majority in 2008 as well as attempt to have a Democrat elected to the Oval Office - they are going to have to do it from the middle. And that will require the Madame Speaker to rein in her more liberal philosophy.
Madame Speaker, however, is not stupid, nor will her newly elected caucus, which is made up of its share of conservatives and moderates, allow her to lead from the left. She isn't about to do anything to jeopardize the majority.
Still, it remains that now that the Democrats have attained the majority, they will have to govern and show the American people why they deserved to be elected.
No comments:
Post a Comment