Pelosi's team: the matchup with Gingrich - and what it says

by: skeptic06

Sun Jul 15, 2007 at 11:35:37 AM EDT

Let's here just take one element: the background of the House Dem leadership in the 110th, as compared with the GOP leadership in the 104th.

And let's consider three factors: age, political baggage and expectations.

(I thought I would do a similar analysis for committee chairmen: there is, however, no online list of House committee chairmen for the 104th (that an hour's shaking - and kicking - the tree has managed to dislodge, at least).)

In itself, old age in a politician is no necessary bar to effectiveness: but, at the very least, it adds weight to other questions raised about his effectiveness.

Second, political baggage: in 1995, the GOP took control of the House after 50 years in the minority; the last election in which they had been reelected to control was 1928 - 15 years before Gingrich was born!

None of their top men had sucked up majority gravy; they all recalled a period in which, to most voters, GOP control of the House was a laughable idea. They had the hunger and arrogance of self-made men.

They owed their elders nothing: guys from the Dirksen era had been content to slide graciously into oblivion. Fuck 'em! The Ginrichites had pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps.

Nor, ideologically, did they have much in common with the Dirksen folk. What achievements were they meant to genuflect to anyway?

How different the 110th majority!

All the old guys remember what it was like to spoon up majority gravy before they were so brazenly usurped by Gingrich. Part of the reason, probably, that they've hung around (and aged the leadership cohort in the process) is that, having had the gravy once, they just had to prove to themselves that they could have it again.

And, compared with their 104th counterparts, the Dem 110th leadership is a positive museum: there's Sonny Dingell, of course, the doyen. When he first took his Daddy's place, there were still Civil War veterans alive!

But there is also the senior CBC contingent, heavily represented in senior Dem circles, who were among the first to enter the House in and after the civil rights era (guys like Conyers and Rangel). Another strong tie of continuity.

And Pelosi herself, though not elected until the Reagan era, has the memory of her father practising old-style Dem politics as mayor of Baltimore in the 50s.

How does this factor in? In every way, to counsel caution.

The Dems have seen the past and it worked!

The Dem performance in holding the House as long as they did is, on paper, spectacular. And the fact that, for a lot of the time, the Conservation Coalition operated to deprive them of a majority on just those matters that today's Dems might want to boast about can be glossed over because the Coalition was informal and doesn't show up as such in the record books.

Moreover, because of the great degree of continuity of personnel in senior ranks, today's Dem House party can look on that longevity as their own achievement.

Let's look at the bottom of the pyramid: in the 104th, a freshman rep was riding in with an insurgent army; he might not have much clout compared to the G-Man, but they were both newcomers, outsiders in the spirit of the Old Frontier, come to shake up a crumbling ancien régime (or Miss Havisham's wedding breakfast).

The 110th freshman, on the other hand, is joining a Restoration, not a revolution. Nostalgia and normalcy pervade the atmosphere. The default imperative is to restore the status quo, not shake the place up.

His seniors will demand that he doesn't rock the boat; that he shows respect; that he waits his turn.

Finally, there's expectations: in the 104th, the GOP went for broke, and pretty much got their wish, when they shut down the government. (And then, having got away with that crazy thing, they impeached Clinton!)

It was as if their motto was easy come, easy go. They were treating their win like lottery winnings. (Or seemed to be.) As if there would be plenty more opportunities to take the House majority; but not unless they rewarded their supporters with risk-taking in pursuit of their objectives.

The psychology of the 110th Dem leadership is the opposite: having been restored to their rightful place, they fear the least jolt may dislodge them again.

As Chris (I think it was) was saying a while back, it's remarkable that the Dems since 1994 have held the GOP so close in the Congressional elections.

That helps the difference in psychology, too: Gingrich had enjoyed a big swing from the range that the GOP had enjoyed under Reagan/Bush, which had a feel of fluke about it.

Whereas the Dems have been so consistently close to a House majority in 96 and subsequent elections as to suggest that what they were doing (in policy, organization, etc) needed no more than tweaking for normal service to resume.

Couple this with the age thing - a good many senior Dems don't have too much time left to enjoy their majority perks - and the continuity thing, and it's little wonder that the enthusiasm for radical action from the 110th majority leadership has been pretty muted. 

They are not going to impeach. They are not going to defund the war.

That's the percentage play for them - and good luck to them.