Today’s Morning Jolt features a preview of the Benghazi hearings, praise for an NR colleague, and then last night’s big news . . . 

This Just In from South Carolina: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Hey, Democrats. You just spent a bundle and lost . . . to Mark Sanford.

The argument that we can’t learn anything about 2014 from an individual special House race is generally true. But Alex Roarty of National Journal — a.k.a. that insider, non-conservative publication that National Review staffers are often mixed up with — repeats my point from yesterday: Democrats put a lot of money and effort into this race, against a Republican candidate they thought was uniquely beatable. (And in fact, he was. But “uniquely beatable” doesn’t always mean you will beat him.)

Now we see all of that Democratic spending gained nothing: $1.2 million in donations to Colbert Busch, more than $929,000 on independent expenditures against Sanford . . . FLUSH!

And there is a lesson for 2014: Mark Sanford managed to overcome the electorate’s wariness about him by emphasizing that a vote for his opponent was a vote for Nancy Pelosi and the Obama agenda. Red-state and red-district Democrats have always had a tough balancing act, emphasizing how they’re not like those other Democrats; Elizabeth Colbert Busch in the end just wasn’t a talented enough candidate to pull that off. (In short, she wasn’t that talented a candidate at all. “The Solyndra of the South,” as Nathan Wurtzel summarized.)

Any remaining red-district Democrats really have to run hard from Pelosi from now until November 2014.

Moe Lane:

This should have gone to the Democrats; but, well, there’s that pesky albatross. May Nancy Pelosi stay House Minority Leader, well, forever. . . . If they can’t win House seats in R districts under these circumstances, they won’t win ‘em under more even ones.

Betsy Woodruff was at the victory party:

There will be lots of analysis in the days to come about what this election means, but one thing isn’t up for debate: Mark Sanford knows how to campaign, and his win here is due at least in part to his tireless canvassing and cheerful willingness to ask for the vote of anyone who would listen to him.

When he arrived at the victory party, Sanford was in full-on retail-politics mode. I followed the former governor on the campaign trail the day before the election and wrote about his perpetual handshaking and small-talking. Winning the election doesn’t seem to have tempered his pace. When he arrives at the party, he laps around the front of the building (which, a server tells me, is more crowded than it’s ever been), posing for pictures and hugging supporters.

Two things are different from the day before, though: First, he’s wearing a suit instead of stained khakis and busted-up shoes, and actually looks like someone who might belong in the halls of the Capitol. And second, he’s got his oldest son, Marshall, in tow. He looks around for his son every minute or two — when he loses sight of him, he asks the nearest staffer, “Where’d Marshall go?” and whenever he gets a chance, he introduces the 20-year-old to supporters who haven’t met him.

Mark Sanford’s sister, Sarah Sanford Rauch, isn’t far behind. She’s one of his veteran campaign volunteers, and she’s outspoken about her support for her embattled brother. I ask her how she feels.

“Exhausted,” she tells me. “It’s the toughest race I’ve ever been in. I’ve helped out on a bunch of races, but this is the toughest, by far.”

“You wake up every morning and you look at the newspaper and you wait to see what anvil is getting dropped on your head each day,” she adds.

Somebody else is feeling the headache this morning.

In other words, while Pelosi has always had a handful of members who were likely to stray, she can expect even less agreement from members like Jim Matheson of Utah (R+16), Nick Rahall of West Virginia (R+14), Mike McIntyre of North Carolina (R+12), John Barrow of Georgia (R+9), and Collin Peterson of Minnesota (R+6) — and perhaps Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona (R+4), Patrick Murphy of Florida (R+3), Pete Gallego of Texas (R+3), and Ron Barber of Arizona (R+3). Because if invoking Pelosi was key to Sanford overcoming the well-funded Colbert Busch, imagine how it will play in districts where the Republican doesn’t have Sanford’s baggage?

We may scoff that Obama writing a check to the U.S. Treasury for $1,666 a month is a meaningless gesture designed to fool those who can’t do math that he’s making a significant sacrifice in the Age of the Sequester . . . but I suppose there are more objectionable approaches for a lawmaker to take:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that she opposes a cut in congressional pay because it would diminish the dignity of lawmakers’ jobs.

“I don’t think we should do it; I think we should respect the work we do,” Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol. “I think it’s necessary for us to have the dignity of the job that we have rewarded.”

The comments were made in the context of the looming sequester, which would force across-the-board cuts affecting most federal offices, including Congress.

As House minority leader, Pelosi is slated to make $193,400 this year; most members of Congress make $174,000.

Pelosi’s net worth is estimated to be $26.4 million, which reflects her husband’s real-estate investments.

Also unmentioned in the coverage: will Vice President Joe Biden be writing a check for 5 percent of his salary as well?

Above, Nancy Pelosi at a May 2012 ceremony where Middle Drive East in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park was renamed “Nancy Pelosi Drive.” Naturally, the road heads south and bends to the left.

Whomever Mitt Romney picks as his running mate, I hope that person understands the need to come out of the gate as a fighter. The language of the first appearance and convention address doesn’t need to be snarling or angry, but right now, millions of Republicans and independents feel like the world has gone crazy, and no one seems intent upon setting it right.

• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is basically making things up, claiming that “a number of people” have told him about felony-level tax evasion by Mitt Romney. (Technically, zero is a number.)
• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi declares, “it is a fact” in response to Reid’s charges and his unnamed sources, and labeling the opposition party, “the E. Coli club.”
• A new ad from President Obama’s SuperPAC declares, “Mitt Romney killed my wife.” (The man’s wife died seven years after Romney left Bain Capital.)
• The Obama “Truth Team” distributes a charge that Romney’s ad hitting Obama for changing the work requirements for welfare “has racial overtones.”
• The attacks on Romney have gotten so insane that Joe Biden looks relatively normal lately.

If, God forbid, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, or Joe Biden were to be struck by genuine neurological dementia, how would we be able to tell?

For whatever reason, Mitt Romney has chosen to not respond in kind; it is left to RNC Chair Reince Priebus to declare Reid a “dirty liar.” But Reid, Pelosi, the president, his campaign, and his allies continue to throw out weapons-grade nonsense into the media environment with absolutely no consequence whatsoever.

There was a time, not long ago, when if the Senate Majority Leader was going to accuse his opponents of a crime, he had to at least point to some evidence, lest he be derided as a McCarthyite, a demagogue, a liar and a toxic influence to public discourse. There was a time when presidential campaigns did not casually accuse their opponent of murder. There was a time when not every criticism of an opponent’s policy triggered a knee-jerk accusation of “racism!”

No one wonders why our political class is so disappointing. It’s because no sane person would want to step into the BS maelstrom that is modern politics. No one wants to deal with a world where people believe that having the right view entitles you to berate restaurant drive-through attendants. Why participate in public debate, if you’re guaranteed to be demonized and denounced as among the worst of humanity?

Our political culture has gone insane. Millions of us want something better, and perhaps Romney thinks he can embody this by taking the high road. Perhaps he is correct that it’s impossible to argue that you’ll be something better if you’re “punching back twice as hard,” as the president’s top strategist once pledged. But somebody has to call out this nonsense for what it is – and I think many, many Republicans are waiting, with growing impatience, for someone to do that.

Today is one of those rare days when I’ll post the entire Morning Jolt here, as it is basically one long examination of the dominant topic of the campaign in recent weeks… So if you aren’t subscribed already, do so.

A Gaffe-tastic Morning Jolt!

We need a better, more specific term for the statements our current political journalism calls “gaffes.”

Because a lot of different statements are being thrown together under this category, and wildly contrary interpretations of candidate’s statements have become the premiere battleground of the 2012 campaign. Perhaps this is an inevitable result of a general election season that began in April or so – we’ve already hashed out the candidate’s agendas and records and ideas and vision; all that’s left is to go over each day’s unscripted comments like they’re the Dead Sea Scrolls.

For example, take then-candidate Obama’s statement, “I’ve now been in fifty-seven states, I think one left to go.”

Now, does anyone actually believe that President Obama thinks there are 57 states? He’s presumably tired, he’s thinking the number forty-seven, and his mouth is just running away from him. Happens to people all the time. He definitely sounds silly – as someone noted, “how many states are there?” is the sort of question they ask you after a concussion – but no one should draw any serious conclusions about Obama from this statement. (Then why do Republicans love the “57 states” statement so much? Because it is a lovely reminder that the candidate touted as the greatest orator since Cicero can sound dumb on his off days, too.)

Does Mitt Romney make some gaffes that deserve some criticism or mockery? Sure. “I’m not concerned about the very poor” comes to mind, or the strange description of himself as “severely conservative,” or joking to those looking for jobs, “I’m also unemployed.” Sometimes there’s this Zen surrealism to his off-the-cuff statements, like, “I love this state. The trees are the right height.” (Tell me you can’t picture Special Agent Dale Cooper making that statement in Twin Peaks.)

But to judge from the coverage of the past week or so, Romney makes a “gaffe” every time he speaks  – and the media, obsessed with advancing a “narrative”, now applies the word “gaffe” to very deliberate statements. What the term gaffe now means is, “a statement that someone, somewhere, doesn’t like.”

Of course, as Romney left the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, Poland this week, some journalistic genius bellowed at the candidate, “what about your gaffes?!?”

Well, what about them? The alleged gaffe of London was Romney accurately mentioning two widely-covered stories in an even-tempered, casual tone in response to an unanswerable question: Is London ready for the games? The apoplectic reaction of the British press and Mayor Boris Johnson says more about them than it does about Romney.

Then another alleged “gaffe” is Romney’s comment about the cultural differences between the Israelis and Palestinians. Is there anyone in America who wants to argue that the culture within the Palestinian territories – where Hamas runs the show, where there is no free press, where kids are taught to glorify suicide bombers, and where vast sums of foreign aid get sucked into rulers’ coffers – is a superior culture to Israel’s? Go ahead. I’m all ears. Enough of this blame-the-embargo crap. Israelis don’t make Palestinians steal foreign aid. Israelis don’t make Palestinians teach kids that the noblest calling is to blow themselves up in a pizzeria. Israelis don’t make Fatah and Hamas subject Palestinian journalists to  harassment, detentions, assaults, and restrictions.

Helpful hint: Any time your culture is dominated by organizations that have a “political wing” and some other not-political wing that often carries rifles and wears masks, you’re going to have some serious problems. Society can only hash out its differences in an orderly manner when the political wing is the organization as a whole.

Some, like Dave Weigel, are convinced that Obama’s recent “gaffes” are routine slips of the tongue or unclear verbiage and that Republicans are making a ridiculous stink over them – but that Romney’s statement in London is a legitimate story. It will not surprise you that I think precisely the opposite – but perhaps the newsworthiness and significance of a gaffe is going to be in the eye of the beholder.

The term “gaffe” now applies to…

Verbal misstatements and grammatical errors: “57 states,” Joe Biden calling his running mate “Barack America”, etc.

Brain freezes: Rick Perry in the debate. Of course this looks bad during a moment in the spotlight, but anyone who has never had this happen to them, raise your hand. Uh-huh. Didn’t think so.

Honest statements that are admissions against self-interest: President Obama declaring during a meeting of his Jobs Council, “Shovel-ready was not as … uh .. shovel-ready as we expected.”

Unusual ideas: Newt Gingrich’s pay-kids-to-be-janitors idea.

Genuinely harmful erroneous statements: Joe Biden saying, “I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now,” in an appearance designed to reassure the public about swine flu, or Michelle Bachmann repeating a mother’s claim that Gardasil causes retardation.

Controversial or unpopular points: See Romney’s Olympics and Palestinian statements above.

The only thing that these types of statements have in common is that they are “off-script,” or unpredicted. The same press corps that whines that candidates are cookie-cutter, stiff, scripted, sticking to predictable talking points, etc., loves to tear apart candidates for spontaneity, speaking casually, thinking out loud, and having things come out a little garbled.

In that light, how should we assess President Obama’s “the private sector is doing fine”, “if you have a business, you didn’t build that” and “our plan worked”? The argument from the president’s defenders is that each one is literally true and only sounds odd to those who don’t understand the context – that the private sector is creating jobs while state and local governments cut back, the “that” refers to roads and bridges, not the business itself, and the plan refers to Bill Clinton’s tax hikes, not Obama’s enacted policies. The problem is that all of these explanations aren’t as exculpatory as his fans think:

A)     If 80,000 or so jobs per month – not enough to keep up with workforce additions –  is your idea of “doing fine,” you’re setting the bar too low.

B)      Even if President Obama was talking about ‘roads and bridges,” business owners did indeed pay for that, through income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and business taxes.

C)      Even if Obama meant Clinton’s tax hikes when he said our plan “worked,” he’s crediting the Clinton tax hikes are the cause of the 1990s economic boom – not the rise of the Internet in American life, the dot-com bubble, etc. “Our plan worked” contends we’re just one big tax hike away from restoring four percent annual GDP growth. Except that the tax hikes were enacted in 1993, and the boom didn’t start until 1996-1997.

The argument from Obama’s critics would be that the “gaffes” aren’t misstatements but signals of what Obama really thinks – that the private sector’s current growth rate really is “fine,” that he thinks businessmen smugly give themselves too much credit for their success and not enough credit to government, and that tax hikes are good for the economy. Perhaps Republicans read too much into these remarks … but perhaps not.

Anyway, carping that the press makes a big deal out of Republican gaffes and ignores Democrat ones is an old, well-founded, and tired complaint. But what’s striking is that the result of this culture of within the press corps is that at least three of the highest figures in the Democratic Party today are among those most prone to making statements that range from the bizarre to the outrageous to the unhinged… and they pay no discernible price for these habits. No matter what they say, the labels “dumb” or “foolish” never seem to stick to them.

Exhibit A: Vice President Joe Biden. “Big [blank]ing deal.” “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television…” “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent…. I’m not joking.” “The president has a big stick. I promise you.” “John’s last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number-one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs.”

Exhibit B: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. “The CIA misleads us all the time.” “We have to pass the bill so you can see what’s in it.” “Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package 500 million Americans lose their jobs.”

Exhibit C: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “You could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol.” Barack Obama would be helped by being a “light-skinned” African-American with “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” “Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.” “We in the Senate refer to Sen. Gillibrand as the hottest member.” “Chris Coons, everybody knows him in the Democratic caucus. He’s my pet. He’s my favorite candidate.”

I mention all this because Harry Reid is at it again.

Saying he had “no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy,” Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.

“Harry, he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years,” Reid recounted the person as saying. “He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” said Reid. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?”

Hey, a Nevadan told me Harry Reid runs an underground dungeon of hookers and gladiatorial games. Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain.

ADDENDA: Lori Ziganto offers the emphatic phrase of the week: “You can quote me on that, but attribute it to Bob Dylan.”

Keep in mind, the stimulus was touted as a massive spending project that would keep the national unemployment rate below 8 percent.

Instead, we have had 39 straight months of unemployment above 8 percent, and the national debt is $4,890,570,120,943.74 ($4.89 trillion) more than it was on the day the stimulus passed.

Remember what Barack Obama said about adding just $4 trillion in debt, and over eight years instead of three and a half:

As you hear Democrats and members of the media insisting that an unemployment rate of 8.1 percent isn’t that bad — ignoring how much of the drop from the peak is driven by Americans ending their job searches and leaving the workforce — recall how they greeted economic times that look positively bountiful compared to our current state:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, December 21, 2002: “This is a crisis.” Unemployment rate at that time: 6.0 percent.

The New York Daily News, 11/2/2003:

The good news that economic growth leaped from June through September runs smack up against the miserable realities of a 6.1% U.S. unemployment rate and a state jobless rate of 8.8%. Until those figures drop, there is no cause for celebration in the streets. Count reviving the national economy as one mission that President Bush hasn’t accomplished.

Letter from Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle to President Bush, November 20, 2003:

American workers are weathering the effects of an economy where there is only one job for every three individuals searching for a job.

The Boston Globe, March 6, 2004:

In a statement issued from his Washington, D.C., campaign headquarters, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, said the latest employment figures show that President Bush has “over-promised and under-delivered” on job growth.

The unemployment rate at that time: 5.6 percent.

November 2006:

Pelosi was not to be outdone, however, firing back at the president who she claimed had “the worst jobs record since the Great Depression,” in spite of Friday’s news that the October jobless rate fell to 4.4 percent, the lowest it has been in more than five years.

Another stimulus success story — well, success for Democratic lawmakers and a company that received millions in federal funds, not for the taxpayer, laid-off workers, or the customers who will probably never purchase the product of the rapidly sinking company.

A Waltham-based electric car battery supplier — now facing financial implosion despite receiving $249 million in federal stimulus cash — was a heavy donor to congressional Democrats before scoring the hefty taxpayer handout, the Herald has learned.

A123 Systems CEO David Vieau has donated $16,900 to Washington, D.C., power brokers and Democratic committees since 2008, including $2,400 to Bay State Rep. Edward J. Markey, the chairman of the climate and energy committees, in 2009 — just three months before A123 received $249 million in federal stimulus funds. Vieau donated another $1,500 to Markey last year as the company pushed for even more federal dollars through government loans.

U.S. Sen. John Kerry, another ardent supporter of the company, received $2,000 in campaign donations from Vieau in 2010, the same year Vieau gave $2,500 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. In 2008, Vieau donated $4,800 to campaign funds supporting President Obama and $200 to the Democratic National Committee.

The Boston Herald also reports:

A123 has laid off more than 100 employees and seen a net loss of $172 million through the first three quarters of 2011 despite the heavy infusion of federal cash. A123 has yet to turn a profit, and losses have been mounting. Earlier this month, the company posted a fourth-quarter loss of $85 million despite $40.4 million in revenue. The company’s stock tanked to an all-time low of just more than $1 yesterday on news of a $55 million battery recall. A defective battery caused a luxury electric car, the Fisker Karma, to conk out earlier this month in a Consumer Reports test.

A luxury electric car called the “Karma” fails a test because of a product from a company that received stimulus funds. Hmmm.

The only thing this story lacks is Obama touring the factory. But perhaps Pelosi will do:

Markey squired then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi through A123’s former Watertown headquarters in June 2010 as a “great example of how Recovery Act funding is helping American companies.” Pelosi called Markey a “true visionary of our time.”

Maybe the Bush family isn’t so opposed to Newt Gingrich after all . . . at the very least, they seem to have little disagreement about sitting down with Nancy Pelosi. She will speak Feb. 20 at the George (H. W.) Bush Presidential Library Center at Texas A&M University.

Newt Gingrich, when you do stuff like this (HT: Ace of Spades), I almost forget all my doubts about your abilities as the GOP nominee:

“One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich,” Nancy Pelosi told Talking Points Memo. “When the time is right. . . . I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”

Gingrich, who served as Speaker of the House, worked with Pelosi in Congress from 1987 to 1999. Pelosi also served on the ethics committee that investigated Gingrich for tax cheating and campaign finance violations in the late ’90s.

Newt responded:

First of all, I’d like to thank Speaker Pelosi for what I regard as an early Christmas gift. If she’s suggesting she’s gonna use material she developed while she was on the ethics committee, that is a fundamental violation of the rules of the House and I would hope members would immediately file charges against her the second she does it.

As Lincoln said of Grant, “I need this man. He fights.”

From a new profile of Nancy Pelosi in the New Yorker: “Pelosi rarely watches television, except for sports, and she hasn’t watched any of the Republican Presidential-candidate debates. She believes that Obama is in better shape than the polls indicate. ‘The Republicans are helping him a lot,’ she said. ‘The extremists—I don’t like to even use that word—those Republicans going too far, sort of stir up the Democratic base, and point out the urgency.’”

I love how she calls Republicans “extremists,” and then says she doesn’t like to use that word.

Either way, Pelosi’s assessment that Obama is stronger than the polls indicate deserves a bit of context; perhaps no figure in Washington has ever so adamantly and steadfastly insisted that a particular political outcome could not occur, only to watch that precise outcome occur, as almost everyone else expected. As I noted in June:

February 28, 2010: “Pelosi Says Democrats Will Keep Control of the House”

March 1, 2010: “Nancy Pelosi predicts Democrats will hold the House”

May 19, 2010: “Bring it on: Pelosi predicts ‘for sure’ that Dems will win House”

July 15, 2010: “Pelosi guarantees Dems will retain House in November”

September 14, 2010: “Speaker Pelosi ‘Absolutely’ Confident Dems Will Retain House Majority”

September 28, 2010: “’I fully expect to be speaker of the House five weeks from now,’ Pelosi replied.”

October 9, 2010: “Vilified or Not, Pelosi Insists She’s Winning”

Midday of Election Day, November 2, 2010: “’With the early returns and the overwhelming number of democrats who are coming out, we’re on pace to maintain the majority in the House of Representatives,’ Pelosi said.”

To refresh your memory, the Democrats lost 63 seats, more than the 39 seats required to shift control of the House.

I know it will come as an enormous shock to you, but the Washington Post found that Americans don’t have much faith in any figure in Washington to resolve the debt-ceiling issue.

Democrats can find a bit of solace in that Obama rates the highest among the six figures, but even he’s “underwater,” with 49 percent having little or no confidence in him, and the two figures with the least amount of public confidence are Senate majority leader Harry Reid (57 percent say “not too confident” or “no confidence”) and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (61 percent).

Looking at the party breakdown, we’re left wondering, who are the 10 percent of self-identified Republicans who have faith in Pelosi here? And would anyone have expected Republicans to have more faith in Harry Reid than Barack Obama?

I understand that when Nancy Pelosi predicts that Democrats will do well in upcoming elections, reporters probably have to mention it in their coverage. But how the prediction justifies headlines, or constitutes anything resembling actual news, escapes me. A quick trip down memory lane:

February 28, 2010: “Pelosi Says Democrats Will Keep Control of the House”

March 1, 2010: “Nancy Pelosi predicts Democrats will hold the House”

May 19, 2010: “Bring it on: Pelosi predicts ‘for sure’ that Dems will win House”

July 15, 2010: “Pelosi guarantees Dems will retain House in November”

September 14, 2010: “Speaker Pelosi ‘Absolutely’ Confident Dems Will Retain House Majority”

September 28, 2010: “’I fully expect to be speaker of the House five weeks from now,’ Pelosi replied.”

October 9, 2010: “Vilified or Not, Pelosi Insists She’s Winning”

Midday of Election Day, November 2, 2010: “’With the early returns and the overwhelming number of democrats who are coming out, we’re on pace to maintain the majority in the House of Representatives,’ Pelosi said.”

To refresh your memory, the Democrats lost 63 seats, more than the 39 seats required to shift control of the House.

Today: “Exclusive: Pelosi Says Democrats Have ‘Very Good Chance’ to Win Back the House in 2012.”

But of course she does.

Can you think of a bad thing, a key voter demographic, a good thing, and some group designated to be villains by the Democratic party?

Then you too can write Nancy Pelosi’s response to Paul Ryan’s budget!

As you have probably noticed, almost every statement from Pelosi utilizes a basic formula from the “Mad Libs” games we did as kids: “The (current GOP proposal) is a path to (bad thing) for (key voter group) and a road to (good thing) for (designated villain).”

Already, Pelosi has used this simple formula to declare, “The GOP Ryan budget is a path to poverty for America’s seniors & children and a road to riches for big oil.”

Later today, you’ll probably hear her add, “The GOP Ryan budget is a path to deprivation for America’s minorities and handicapped and a road to euphoria for health insurance companies.”

And by tonight, she’ll by saying, “The GOP Ryan budget is a path to obsessive-compulsive disorder for America’s exurban independent voters age 30 to 49 and a road to abundance for Charlie Sheen.”

The NRCC is giddy this morning:

Dem campaign chief: Goal is making Pelosi Speaker again

House Democrats’ goal is to make Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) the Speaker of the House again, their campaign chairman said Wednesday evening. 

Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), set his goal as nothing short of winning back control of the House in the 2012 elections. ”We’re all trying to win it back,” Israel said on MSNBC when asked if it was Democrats’ goal of winning back enough seats to make Pelosi, the former Speaker and new minority leader, the next Speaker.

You’ll be seeing Nancy Pelosi, and this headline, in a lot of House race ads in 2012 . . .

Two notes from today’s Morning Jolt, the first under Speaker Boehner . . .

From Nancy the Fancy to Boehner the Saner

No matter what you think of John Boehner, there was a nice note to his opening remarks as Speaker of the House: sometimes, less is more. This applies to government regulations as well as to grandiose rhetoric.

In the Corner, Tevi Troy was ebullient: “Speaker John Boehner’s (I love writing that) speech today hit all of the right notes in focusing on humility and transparency, which have been characteristics sorely lacking among recent congressional leaders. Going forward, Speaker Boehner (I still love writing that) needs to maintain those perspectives, but also demonstrate that he is serious, in two important ways. First, he must be serious about governing the country in an adult fashion, which could include clamping down irresponsible rhetoric on the part of some of his members. Second, he must show that he is serious about addressing the budgetary and fiscal concerns of the American people, and the Tea Partiers in particular, who helped him earn his new title.”

At Hot Air, even the congenital pessimist Allahpundit was fairly cheery: “NRO has the transcript but, at just 10 minutes or so, it’s worth watching if you can spare the time. Whether this is just Boehner being Boehner or whether he’s deliberately being low-key to signal a new era of modest government (in every sense of the word), it’s effective enough that even lefty Ezra Klein felt obliged to call it ‘as smart a speech as I’ve seen a politician give.’ What strikes me about it is that in substance it sounds a lot like Obama circa 2008 on the trail — process reforms, new day in Washington, disagreeing without being disagreeable, etc — but in tone it’s the opposite of messianic. Klein, in fact, notes that Boehner responded to Republican applause at one point with, ‘It’s still just me.’ Imagine that line coming from The One. The fact that a speech like this might accurately be said to have captured the political moment shows just how far we are from Inauguration Day 2009.”

Charlotte Hays couldn’t get past the opening act: “As usual, Nancy Pelosi stole the show — and reminded us why we are very, very glad that she is no longer Speaker of the House. Pelosi went on so long before giving the stage to John Boehner that surely I wasn’t the only person yearning to see a shepherd’s crook yank her off. The manic smile added a truly weird dimension. Is Nancy Pelosi really human?”

Is Pelosi really human? Of course she is . . . probably. But there’s something revealing about the Pelosi mindset, and I don’t know whether her approach and what she’s achieved represents a triumph of positive thinking or the value of a serious psychological inability to acknowledge her own flaws or negative feedback. She insisted Obamacare would create hundreds of thousands of jobs almost immediately. She insisted the Democrats would keep the House. She insisted that even after a historic loss, she should continue to lead her party in the chamber. And Wednesday afternoon, she felt that this was the moment to recite all of the joys of the legislation passed by all the folks that the lawmakers in front of her defeated. As far as we can tell, she doesn’t feel regret, doubt, hesitation, or guilt. Given hours of time to argue with her, we probably could never persuade her that her time as Speaker included any errors or missteps or promotion of any ideas opposed by a majority of the American people. Sure, she’s delusional. But maybe those delusions are what make her able to do what she does.

It is helpful to the National Republican Congressional Committee that some incumbent House Democrats publicly self-identified that they were extremely vulnerable if they’re tied to Nancy Pelosi.

It appears there are at least 19 Democrats who could not afford to see “voted to make Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House” ads in their districts in fall 2012.

Reps. Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Jim Cooper of Tennessee, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Tim Holden of Pennsylvania, Larry Kissell of North Carolina, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, Jim Matheson of Utah, Mike Michaud of Maine, Mike Ross of Arkansas, and Heath Shuler of North Carolina voted for Shuler as Speaker.

Reps. John Barrow of Georgia and Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona voted for Georgia Democrat John Lewis for Speaker.

In a cute show of mutual admiration, Reps. Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa of California voted for each other.

Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin voted for Cooper; Rep. Daniel Lipinski of Illinois voted for Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio; Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon voted for Steny Hoyer of Maryland; and Rep. Sanford Bishop of Georgia voted “present.”

Not sorry to see you go!

Gallup:

The 111th Congress received an average 25% approval rating from Americans over the course of 2009 and 2010. While this is similar to the 23% average approval rating for the 110th Congress spanning 2007 and 2008, it is among the lowest average approval ratings for a Congress that Gallup has recorded in the past two decades.

The disapproval averaged 66 percent. As recently as the 108th Congress (2003–04), legislators had an average closer to even: 44 percent approve, 48 percent disapprove. In fact, no Gingrich- or Hastert-led Congress ever polled as poorly as either of Pelosi’s Congresses.

Via Politico:

TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year panel, held last evening at the Time & Life Building in New York, featured Meghan McCain, Wyclef Jean, Marissa Mayer, Joe Trippi and Daisy Khan in a lively debate about who would be the best person of the year for TIME’s annual issue that goes on newsstands this December. In a discussion led by TIME Managing Editor Richard Stengel, McCain suggested the Tea Party or Glenn Beck. She ruled out Christine O’Donnell, saying she is “in no way qualified to do anything.” Mayer talked about first discovering the idea of a personal computer on TIME’s cover at the end of 1982, “Machine of the Year: The Computer Moves In.” She then suggested Steve Jobs of Apple. Khan said that Mayor Michael Bloomberg could be Person of the Year, for his support of Park 51. Jean said that Haitians should be honored as “people of the year.” Trippi nominated Nancy Pelosi, who Jean supported later as well by saying that the cover of TIME should “represent legacy . . . Pelosi does that.” TIME is now hosting a poll for readers to pick their person of the year.

Yeesh.

The biggest news event of the year, with little dispute, is the backlash against the Obama administration and its policies, manifested in a variety of ways but most dramatically in the Tea Parties. From where I sit, the two individuals who most clearly articulate and personify that backlash are Sarah Palin and Chris Christie. Of course, the magazine’s Men and Women of the Year usually are presidents, innovators and dictators, so a former governor turned Fox News commentator or a first-year governor of New Jersey would be an unorthodox choice.

If we’re looking abroad or beyond politics, intriguing choices would be British prime minister David Cameron, the plumber who helped the design of the plug for the Gulf oil-spill leak, and the creative geniuses of Pixar.

Having said that, it would be kind of fun to read, “For leading the Democrats to their worst defeat in two generations, Nancy Pelosi is our Woman of the Year.”

From this morning’s Jolt:

If House Democrats’ Mass Extinction Event Didn’t Deter Pelosi, a Letter Won’t Stop Her

Interesting and amusing, but ultimately irrelevant, I think: “FOX has obtained a letter being penned by defeated House Democrats that implores House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to step aside. The letter is now circulating Capitol Hill and has not yet been sent to the Speaker. FOX has obtained draft language of the letter . . . The letter goes on to say ‘Madam Speaker, fairly or unfairly, Republicans made you the face of the resentment and disagreement in our races. While we commend your years of service to our party and your leadership through many tough times, we respectfully ask that you step aside as the top Democrat in the House.’ “

Pelosi obviously didn’t worry too much about what all these swing-district Democrats thought over the past two years. Why should she start now? And why should she listen to a bunch of soon-to-be-EX-members if she’s not hearing this from the surviving members? Guys, she just watched 60some of you go down in flames and is marching forward without batting an eye. [Then again, maybe her stiff upper lip is just the Botox.] If she considers her party losing in a landslide to be an acceptable loss to enact a liberal agenda, she’s not going to buckle in the face of a sternly-worded letter.

Dave Weigel thinks the stop-Pelosi movement forgot something: a credible alternative. “Obviously the intent of the letter is to complicate Pelosi’s decision by warning of Democratic defeats to come. It’s not to suggest a Pelosi replacement. But doesn’t the lack of a credible non-Pelosi fatally weaken the Stop Pelosi plan? At least the 1972 Democrats had Humphrey! And speaking Democratic internecine conflict, the AFL-CIO has thrown its weight behind Pelosi — if there an interest group besides ‘Heath Shuler’s 2012 re-election hopes’ that opposes Pelosi, it’s awfully quiet.”

A reader wonders just how badly Nancy Pelosi wants to be House Minority Leader: “Let’s see how she feels after a year or so of flying on (shudder) commercial airplanes with hoi polloi. She may decide that’s too great a sacrifice and retire to Marin County.”

She’ll probably have to get by on First Class, presuming no friendly CEO is willing to help out with a private jet. Perhaps Barney Frank and Chellie Pingree can give recommendations.

“This is not a national election,” says the woman whose face features in probably half the ads for GOP House candidates from coast to coast.