Summit Notebook
Exclusive outtakes from industry leaders
from Tales from the Trail:
Pelosi boils down winning back the House to A-B-C
Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, says her party can take a strategy to regaining a House majority that is as simple as A-B-C.
At the Reuters Washington Summit on Wednesday, Pelosi, the Minority Leader in the House, repeated her optimistic contention that her party has a 50/50 chance of winning back control, two years after a crushing defeat in the 2010 mid-term elections.
According to Pelosi’s 2012 campaign aphorism, “A” stands for American made and promoting policies to help reignite manufacturing in the United States. “B” is to build American infrastructure, including a focus on broadband, water systems and high-speed rail. “C” is for a sense of community, including a focus on police officers, firefighters and public safety.
“Right now the momentum is with us,” Pelosi said of the November elections, where her party needs a net gain of 25 seats to win back the majority. “It’s easier to win 25 seats than to hold 63,” she declared. “We have out-recruited the Republicans and we have fabulous candidates. This time we will be ready.”
Never one to mince words, Pelosi, who for two terms was the first woman Speaker of the House until her party was dumped from power in 2010, bemoaned many of the current Republicans in the House as “a rabid band of anti-government ideologues.”
“There are some words that have taken a beating under the Republicans, and one of them is compromise,” said Pelosi. “Obstruction is not just a tactic, it’s an agenda for them. “
Photo credit: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks during the Reuters Washington Summit in Washington, June 27, 2012. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
If Democrats hold US House, Pelosi seen concentrating power-lobbyist
If Democrats are able to hang on to the U.S. House of Representatives in the November 2 elections, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will likely be able to concentrate her power because there will be fewer conservative Democrats giving her a hard time on critical votes, according to top senior lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Political prognosticators have said that Republicans are within striking distance of taking control of the House in November, with Republicans needing a net gain of 40 seats and polls showing them closing in on that target.
“She’ll have a much more cohesive conference than she has now because it’s the middle that’s anticipated to get cratered in this election,” Bruce Josten told the Reuters Washington Summit. “Most of the seat losses anticipated come from the people that are the hardest votes to get on party-line unity votes.”
Pelosi has had a tough time over the last few years holding onto votes from conservative Democrats, like the Blue Dog Democrats who have lobbied hard to ensure most legislation does not add to the bloated federal deficit.
“She’ll have a lot less negotiating to have to do, she’ll have a stronger more cohesive conference, oddly enough, than what she has had,” Josten said, adding a cautionary note that “she’ll have less margin … but literally most of the members of the Progressive Caucus are in safe districts.”
Many of the Blue Dog Democrats have decided against running for re-election or are facing tough bids to return to Washington.
Josten also said that if Republicans are able to win control of the House, predictions that they will be able to significantly alter the health care law that was passed earlier this year are probably overblown.
Berman: House may be “lame” after elections but won’t be paralyzed
The chairman of the House of Representatives committee on foreign affairs hasn’t lost his sense of humor…yet.
Representative Howard Berman said he has been struggling for 24 years to get Congress to ease up on travel restrictions for Americans who want to go to Cuba. He’s determined to get it through his committee this year, even if it doesn’t happen until after the November election when the lawmakers are in “lame duck” session.
“We’re lame but we’re not paralyzed,” he told the Reuters Washington Summit when asked if it was possible to still get bills out of committee and to the full House for a vote during the time between the November election and the beginning of the new session in January.
Berman said he does not want to bring the topic up for a vote until he knows it can pass. So far, that is apparently not the case.
Though he could joke about the lame duck session he got in a few digs about the conservative Tea Party movement and then fiercely defended House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“She is always under-estimated. Yes she wants to get certain things done, and there are people who don’t want to be pushed to do those things and so that can always cause a little bit of tension,” he said.
“I think anybody who reaches the conclusion that she is part of our problems is really misreading everything about the last year and a half.”
Two keys to winning back the House by the Dems are women’s issues and senior’s issues. Pelosi’s ABC can be a sidebar.
Focus on the GOP funding student loans by cutting ACA funding mammograms, pap smears, contraceptives. Win their vote with life at conception ends birth control pill use. The idea a man can get between you and your doctor forcing invasive transvaginal ultrasounds is bad enough, having women pay for their own violation insult to injury.
Repeal of ACA is taking $600 from every senior with it’s help closing the doughnut hole. Future seniors will lose every penny they put into medicare, pay $6000 more out of pocket to buy private insurance that is nonexistent today for seniors. Not a single plan for seniors in the entire world covers half of what medicare does. With hundreds of millions of seniors in the world with some means, there is no health insurance for seniors available in private markets. Too much risk, too little return. To make returns viable the average cost would beyond reach for most seniors.