The effort to sabotage Nancy Pelosi as Speaker grows even more absurd

| 10:55 pm EST November 19, 2018
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Sixteen House Democrats signed a letter today, stating their intention not to vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. The trouble: they still have no argument against Pelosi. They still have no opposing candidate. The person they’re trying to recruit as Speaker didn’t even sign the letter. Their numbers are dropping. And one of the people who signed the letter isn’t even in the House. No, really – this just keeps getting stupider.

The effort to unseat Nancy Pelosi is being led by two centrist House Democrats: Seth Moulton, who has described himself as a “moderate,” and Tim Ryan, who previously tried to cut off federal funding for abortion. They know they can’t run against Pelosi for Speaker, because they’re to her right, and they’re trying to sell this as a challenge from the left. So they’ve tried to recruit a series of liberal candidates, none of whom seem all that interested. Their latest supposed candidate is Marcia Fudge. But even as she reportedly goes back and forth on whether she wants to run, she declined to sign today’s letter.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, House liberals are embracing Nancy Pelosi. Pramila Jayapal, a notable progressive House Democrat, endorsed Pelosi over the weekend. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the current poster child for the far left, says she doesn’t see eye to eye with Pelosi on everything, but she thinks Pelosi should be Speaker. MoveOn.org, which usually loves to challenge Democratic leaders from the left, has endorsed Pelosi.

To give you an idea of how absurd this anti-Pelosi letter is, one of the sixteen “House Democrats” who signed it is Ben McAdams. He’s merely a candidate in a still-uncalled House race in Utah, and the latest numbers suggest he’s going to lose to the Republican incumbent. So this movement, which seemed to have seventeen votes, now only has sixteen, and only fifteen of them will actually be able to vote. And again, this is a challenge from Pelosi’s right, masquerading as challenge from her left – which is why so many leftist House Democrats are getting behind Pelosi instead of signing the letter.