The argument that Nancy Pelosi is over the hill and out of touch and therefore should not be elected as Speaker of the House is completely without merit.. This argument is devoid of some of the most salient principles of what constitutes effective leadership. A good leader needs a honeymoon period to learn the ropes and gain the trust of the members. The Dems do not have the luxury of time to break in a new speaker. They have just two years to put together significant legislation and complete thorough investigations on all the ethical and constitutional missteps of the Trump Administration. A brand new speaker could easily trip up, not mesh with large segments of the members and blow the whole two years.
Nancy Pelosi is brimming with institutional history. She knows her members and she obviously grasps the ins and outs what it takes to be an effective speaker. Since Trump took office, she has kept the Dem members in line and focused. (Some have characterized the job of speaker as not unlike herding cats.) For this mid-term election, she helped orchestrate one of the finest comebacks a party has experienced in decades. Two-hundred and eighteen members won seats in the House under her leadership. And she garnered this success despite the headwinds of a healthy economy blowing in her face. Would a brand new speaker manage to come even close to her record?
In addition, the new Dem members (36 to date) are going to need a guiding hand. Pelosi has the experience and leadership skills to give them direction and help them build a healthy record to run on two years hence. It would be demonstrably more difficult for a new speaker to provide that kind of assistance. Hence the freshmen members might become more vulnerable in their re-election bid in two years. Even worse, Dems could lose their majority position in 2020. This is not the time to become experimental, Dem members.
And finally and most importantly the Dems have a track record of taking a good thing and mucking it up. That is what this latest kerfuffle could end up doing. Why some upstart Dems are even considering the idea of installing a new speaker after the job Pelosi just completed defies logic. She is a five star leader and the next two years are critical.
She should be given a standing ovation for her success and voted in as Speaker without delay. Those engaged in this mini-rebellion should realize that at this particular moment in history, tradition and an unbroken stream of leadership outweighs all ideas of how a new face might sweep out the cobwebs. That notion, and it will come, will have to wait for a more propitious time.
Here is an article from Donna Edwards in The Washington Post who served under Pelosi and provides an up close and personal account of what she thinks about Pelosi’s effectiveness. It is an eye- opening article.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-you-still-need-nancy-pelosi/2018/11/16/41a95746-e9bc-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html?utm_term=.4c19f27696f2