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. Democrats lost 63 seats in the 2010 congressional elections, which delivered Republicans control of the House. Democrats would need to win 25 seats now held by Republicans to flip control of the House back in their favor. Republicans, going into the 2010 contests, had been coy about naming a number of seats they thought they would gain, or, until the end of the campaign, outright predicting that they would win back the majority. Israel’s confidence could well shift over the next two years — in an optimistic or pessimistic way — as political events unfold between now and 2012. “Look, I’m focused on gaining 25 seats back so that we can regain the majority and continue to protect the middle class — not vote against the middle class, which is what the Republicans did just 20 minutes ago on the floor of the House,” Israel said, referencing one of the first House votes on Wednesday afternoon. |