Different Surviving House Members Will Claim To Have Learned Different Lessons From The Great Shellacking

The Democratic wave elections of 2006 and 2008 may have been glorious, but they left the Democratic Party with the task of defending dozens of seats in traditionally red districts, sometimes in districts that hadn't been represented by Democrats since... well, since forever. One of the problems inherent in that is that the House caucus was constantly bending over backwards-- compromising the agenda-- to accommodate those vulnerable freshmen and sophomores and their shaky reelection prospects in those red districts filled with Fox viewers and Hate Talk Radio listeners.

Most voters wanted to see Congress extend the middle class tax cuts and NOT extend the tax cuts for millionaires. Polling showed it a tremendously winning issue for Democrats and the House was ready to follow President Obama's lead and pass legislation to that effect. The onus would then be on the Republicans, first in the House, and after passage, in the Senate, to explain why they were against tax cuts for the middle class and why they were opposing them unless millionaires were included as well. But several vulnerable, conservative freshmen and sophomores went to Hoyer complaining that they would be painted as being pro-tax if they voted for anything that didn't include the GOP demands for tax cuts for the wealthy. The House leadership decided to postpone the vote, sealing the fate of their majority and-- if anyone cares-- dooming the prospects of a reasonable tax policy for tens of millions of American families.

Nearly all the freshmen and sophomores who won seats from Republicans in 2006 and 2008 were defeated and the tsunami dragged down longtime incumbents like Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS), Earl Pomeroy (Blue Dog-ND), Jim Oberstar (MN), Rick Boucher (VA), Jim Marshall (Blue Dog-GA), John Spratt (SC), Ike Skelton (MO), John Salazar (Blue Dog-CO), Chet Edwards (TX).

The only members of the Class of '06 who were elected by winning GOP seats and will be serving after January are Tim Walz (MN), John Yarmuth (KY), Dave Loebsack (IA), Bruce Braley (IA), Chris Murphy (CT), Joe Courtney (CT), Ed Perlmutter (CO), probably Jerry McNerney (CA) and a couple of mangy left-over Blue Dogs who mostly vote like Republicans (Jason Altmire, Heath Shuler, Joe Donnelly and Gabby Giffords). Of the Class of '08, the only survivors among the members who had originally beaten Republicans to win their seats are Jim Himes (CT), Gary Peters (MI), Larry Kissell (NC), Martin Heinrich (NM), and probably Dan Maffei (NY) and Jerry Connolly (VA).

Of this entire lot, the only Democrats left in seats that McCain won in 2008 are three Blue Dogs-- Shuler, Altmire, Giffords-- who can be counted on to be hysterically demanding the Democrats move further right, further in a corporate direction, further in mimicking the Republican Party. These-- and the handful of other Blue Dogs and New Dems who weren't flushed down the toilet-- learned very different lessons than the lessons normal Democrats learned about serving ordinary working families. Shuler, who in the current session has voted far more frequently with the GOP than with the Democrats on the contentious, substantive issues Congress faced, is already running up and down screeching about electing conservative leaders. While most Democrats are grateful that Latino voters, despite the lack of progress on the DREAM Act or comprehensive immigration reform, turned out in large numbers for Democrats (by a two-to one margin nationally), and saved Reid's seat, Bennet's seat and Boxer's seat, Shuler is a leader of the most extreme anti-immigrant Know Nothing bigots in the House. Gay voters seem to have taken a different approach. As we saw yesterday, while the majority stuck with the Democratic Party, there was some fall-off in the LGBT community from disappointed Obama voters who expected more of that promised change stuff. Almost all of the Democrats-- again, Blue Dogs-- who voted against the Hate Crimes bill were defeated.

Yesterday Nancy Pelosi, having sewn up her election prospects, announced that she would be running for the Democratic House Leader post and Hoyer said he would try to win the Minority Whip position (currently held by Jim Clyburn, who would like to keep it). If Obama truly plans to work hand in hand with the GOP to institute their conservative agenda-- he certainly does as far as so-called "free" trade and seems willing to go along with their Bush tax cut proposals and possibly even the Democratic Party-destroying Social Security roll backs they want so dearly-- a strong and progressive Pelosi is a much less appealing prospect than a complacent, corporate Hoyer. Obama doesn't seem to care at all that if the Democratic caucus continues to cater to the most extreme right fringe of its caucus-- something that is a hallmark of Steny Hoyer's brand of leadership-- it will continue to lose elections.

The question is whether she has significantly complicated life for Obama as he prepares to deal with the Republican majority in the House and Senate Republicans led by someone who spent the week hurling thunderbolts at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. From outside reports, the White House was conflicted about whether it wanted her to stay or go, torn between loyalty to the speaker for all she did during the past two years and its own political needs in the wake of Tuesday's loss.

Pelosi will be a symbol of resistance and liberal opposition to the Republicans. If Obama wants a House leader who will help draw bright lines of distinction with the new House majority, Pelosi may be exactly the right person to lead House Democrats. If he wants more room to maneuver, to make deals with Republicans as well as confront them, she may not be at all what he wants.

Memories are short in Washington, which is why there was such widespread expectation that Pelosi would resign. Former Republican speaker Newt Gingrich stepped down days after his party's embarrassing performance in the 1998 midterms (though the party did not lose its majority). Former Republican speaker J. Dennis Hastert decided not to seek a leadership position after his party lost the majority four years ago, and later quit Congress entirely.

For Pelosi, who may have looked farther back in the history books, the role model may be Sam Rayburn, the legendary Democratic speaker from Texas. Rayburn's party lost its majority in the 1946 midterms but he stayed on, running successfully for minority leader - although he never liked the term.

Rayburn's persistence was rewarded when Harry S. Truman's 1948 campaign against the "do-nothing" 80th Congress not only resulted in the president's unexpected victory but the election of a Democratic majority in the House to boot.

Pelosi may not believe House Democrats will return to the majority that quickly, but she sounds determined to defend what has happened on her watch.

If Rayburn was one of the strongest speakers in history, Pelosi is the strongest of modern times. Fighting the kind of prejudice that all women in politics face, she emerged as a shrewd, savvy and, above all, tough-minded speaker. Under her leadership, the House passed historic legislation and accumulated a record of significant productivity. Without her political skills, Obama would not be able to count health care as one of his achievements.

Meanwhile, Jerry Nadler, speaking at a panel in NYC said aloud what most progressive legislators have been whispering among themselves about "their" president, saying a reasonable jury would probably find him "guilty of political malpractice in the first degree," both for allowing himself to be negotiated into a stimulus that was "far too small" and too tilted toward unstimulative tax cuts, and also for his "extended use of Hooverite rhetoric to assure people that the economy is improving when it obviously isn't improving."

Mr. Nadler said that if unemployment stays high-- as he predicted it will, given that the additional stimulus he said was needed to reduce it is now "politically impossible"-- the consequence will be a Republican Senate and a Republican president in 2012, to be followed by a Democratic takeover of Congress in 2014.

Mr. Nadler said that given that "the gambling casino on Wall Street wrecked the economy," the financial regulation bill passed by Congress was "exceedingly mild" and probably not adequate to prevent the next crisis.

As for the agenda looking forward, Mr, Nadler declared that "cap and trade is dead, obviously." He said that while Republicans were unlikely fully to repeal ObamaCare, they might "sabotage it by refusing to fund" it-- and he said that was in their power to do, even if they controlled just the House. He also said Republicans might try to "destroy the enforcement budgets" of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

By the way, if you missed it, listen to how Rachel Maddow framed the reason for the Democratic losses on Thursday evening: