Yglesias » Hippie in the House

Yglesias » Hippie in the House: "I don’t actually find this very puzzling. If you look at the record, when Pelosi first became Minority Leader people suggested that Democrats were doomed. When the Democrats won the House in 2006, there was an immediate cry to . . . replace Nancy Pelosi with Rahm Emannuel. Then after 2010 again come the calls to dump Pelosi. Basically no matter what the question the answer is “dump Nancy Pelosi.” And that’s because, basically, she’s a DFH. Of really powerful politicians in America, she’s the most left-wing. And of real liberals in American politics, she’s the most powerful. Reid’s not like a stealth conservative or the second coming of Ben Nelson or anything, but when the body politic swings to the right he swings with it. He voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq and voted no on the Levin and Durbin amendments to temper it. Pelosi led the opposition in the House, breaking with the caucus’s then-leader Richard Gephardt."