Pelosi’s Very Bad Decision

I am rarely disgusted by Nancy Pelosi. She’s mostly a good Speaker and a lot more effective than Chuck Schumer is in the Senate. I have my criticisms, yes, but she’s a tough fighter. Unfortunately, she has made a very poor decision: openly embracing and now endorsing Joe Kennedy’s primary run against Ed Markey in the Senate. And why?

Well then…

A Pelosi aide tells @MKhan47 she was concerned by Markey attacks “…on Joe, his family, his supporters and the Kennedy family policy legacy.”

Specifically his: “With all due respect, it’s time to start asking what your country can do for you,” line in a recent ad

— Johnny Verhovek (@JTHVerhovek) August 20, 2020

Now, let us review the DCCC’s 2019 move against primary challenges in the House.

Whatever self-serving spin may be conjured by party leaders and their amen corner in the media, this is the explanation for why the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has announced that it will not grant contracts to pollsters, strategists, and communications specialists working with Democrats who mount primary challenges to incumbents in 2020. And this is why politically-savvy Democrats are objecting to the DCCC’s move.

There was a lot of rightful criticism of the DCCC here. Is it the role of the DCCC to protect those already in Congress? Sure, you can make a good argument for that, even if you think that blackbaling those who help challengers (as if that was effective in 2020) is a bad idea.

But there’s no way to square the circle of Pelosi intervening in a Massachusetts Senate race against an incumbent who also happens to be one of the most progressive senators and co-sponsor of the Green New Deal in order to support a name and head of hair who happens to come from a family that Pelosi likes.

Terrible, awful move by Pelosi. Completely unacceptable.