#rsrh QotD, Nancypalooza Edition.

Sorry.  It’s just that this Pelosi-is-running thing is like blogging gold.  Or blogging crack.  Anyway, Allahpundit on the news that the soon-to-be-ex Speaker is pushing through, despite it all:

The good news: The GOP just became a prohibitive favorite to hold the House in 2012. The bad news: …I actually can’t think of any.

Given Allahpundit, that’s impressive.  Not that I can think of any, either.

Moe Lane

#rsrh Clap if you believe in Olbermann!

I figure that this is staged – mostly because I don’t believe that MSNBC was unaware that Keith Olbermann was making campaign contributions to Democrats before they suspended him without pay – with the objective being getting the netroots up in arms and angrily demanding that the network reinstate their favorite pornographer.  A ratings ploy, in other words.

Either that, or they want to give his timeslot to Alan Grayson.

#rsrh Lisa Heinzerling forced out of EPA?

Well, it’s not like what Donald Rumsfeld leaving SecDef after 2006 was for the Left, but watching a hard Greenie like Lisa Heinzerling leave her position in the wake of the Great Shellacking is pretty good:

Lisa Heinzerling, the head of EPA’s policy office, will return to her position as a Georgetown University law professor at the end of the year, said EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan.

Within EPA, Heinzerling is one of the more dogmatic proponents of regulating greenhouse gases to the maximum extent possible under the Clean Air Act.

Via Hot Air: Ed wonders whether Heinzerling left under her own power, or was pushed. I’m guessing pushed: hardcore religious fanatics like Heinzerling are typically uninterested in being team players.  In a way, it’s a shame: watching her try to explain to an unsympathetic House investigation committee about why it’s suddenly necessary for the government to have regulatory power over our exhalations would have been fun to see.  Which is probably why the administration made her position carbon-neutral, the cowards.

Moe Lane

The Matter of Pelosi.

Bob Shrum, November 4, 2010: “Long after the midterm stories have faded, and the predictions of the President’s political demise prove as facile and false as they were with Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, history will accord Pelosi an unprecedented scale of achievement for a House Speaker.”

Bob Shrum, September 30, 2010: “Democrats will hold the House and Senate. ”

Shrum will no doubt mutter that he was right about Boxer, Murray, Reid, and Coons (while resolutely ignoring that he was wrong about Sestak and Conway, and avoided completely talking about Giannoulias, Ellsworth, Feingold, Meek, and Lincoln); but he completely miscalled the House results, mostly because Shrum is incapable of recognizing that the American people did come out en masse in response to the Democrats’ policies.  It’s just that they came out en masse against the Democrats*.

Continue reading The Matter of Pelosi.

#rsrh A reason to drink in DC.

Watching Democratic soon to be ex-staffers try to come to grips with this marvelous economy that they’ve given the rest of us should be quite entertaining.

The Great Shellacking of 2010 will throw more than 2,000 Democratic congressional staffers out of their jobs.

Mind you, Erick Erickson over at RedState had some pointers for them.  Note the time stamp: this situation really shouldn’t have been a surprise to anybody.

(via @jeffemanuel)

Moe Lane

#rsrh Pelosi to go for House Minority Leader?

I understand that she’s not particularly rooted in objective reality – progressive Democrat, and all that – but surely somebody told her that this is a bad idea, yes?

…I was going to try to talk sense into the future-just-another-backbencher-Congresswoman-from-Frisco about this; but heck, this is the best darn idea that I’ve heard come out of the woman since she inflicted her presence on us back in the beginning of the decade. Yeah, go ahead and run, Nancy. Scramble for the scraps of your former power and be the butt of contemptuous pity by every player in Washington. If I had suggested this tactic, I’d be (rightfully) condemned as a sadist; but you want to do it all on your own, so have fun with that.

Moe Lane

54 of 99.

That’s the current number of state legislative chambers* that the GOP will be controlling, starting next year: there are still five state legislative chambers still undecided, so the number could go as high as 59 of 99.  That represents a flip of eighteen state chambers (and the gain of both houses in the state legislature in six states) by the GOP; couple that with a  +7 to +10 gain in governorships and it was a good night for the Republicans on the state level.

This is important for two reasons (besides the obvious one that this makes it easier to pass conservative/Republican policies): first, it cuts deeply into the available pool for up-and-coming Democratic legislators who would like to be Federal Congressmen and Senators – or, for that matter, governors.  Second, it neatly spokes the wheel of the Democrats’ long-term project to have control over the redistricting process.  In 2011, the redistricting process will require the maps to be redrawn in eighteen states; and it was always the goal of the Democratic party to have unilateral oversight over that process, the better to eliminate troublesome Republicans via gerrymandering.  Thanks largely to the RGA, that’s a lot less of a problem than it was before: of the eighteen states that are going to gain/lose seats, at least thirteen will have Republican governors, which will help keep the shenanigans down.

In short: Tuesday was a great night for the GOP, on pretty much every level that you would care to name.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Nebraska has an unicameral legislature.