Nancy Pelosi just gave Republicans some bulletin board material.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, I’ll explain: whenever two rivals are about to play a big game, and one (or more) players from one side shoots off his (or her) mouth about the other team’s weak chance of victory (and/or various other insults), it’s called “bulletin board material.” Coaches have been known to post media reports of such mistargeted public utterances on their team’s locker room bulletin board to provide a little extra incentive to his own squad to run faster, hit harder or dive for that extra rebound when the opportunity for revenge burns brightest.
Strangely enough, there’ve been studies on whether “bulletin board material” has any actual effect on the eventual outcome of the game. “Broadway Joe” Namath famously guaranteed a victory for the AFL’s New York Jets over the heavily favored NFL Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III in 1969. Most football experts smirked and ignored Namath’s boldfaced prediction, since the Colts were viewed by everyone back then as the far superior team. As one would guess, the Jets ended up playing David to the Colts’ Goliath. It wouldn’t be much of a story otherwise, would it?
In other words, there isn’t any definitive proof regarding the purported benefits or drawbacks of “trash talk”. In my experience, the other team spouting off serves to hype up your side before the game starts but fades quickly once the participants get into the struggle for points where it counts. Most folks take swagger for what it is – hot air that is dispelled only by a version of “show me, don’t tell me”, or “put your money where your mouth is”. Or, when the contest is decided, “Scoreboard baby!”
So what exactly did Pelosi start with her unsolicited recent braggadocio? Did she really give the Republicans extra incentive to win next month? Joseph Lord reported at The Epoch Times last week:
“During an Oct. 3 appearance on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,’ Pelosi was asked for her midterm prediction. ‘I believe that we will win the House—hold the House,’ Pelosi said. ‘And we will hold the House—by winning more seats.’…
“During her appearance on Colbert’s show, Pelosi chalked up Democrats’ net loss of seats in 2020 to the fact that President Donald Trump’s name was on the ballot. Pelosi continued, ‘We won the 40 seats [during the 2018 midterms], then we lost some when Trump was on the ballot—we lost some of the Trump districts—but we held enough seats to hold the House with him on the ballot.’
“’He’s not on the ballot now,’ Pelosi added.”
So there you have it. Aside from Nancy P.’s inane political forecast, why would Colbert invite her on his show? Isn’t the late-night entertainment gossip production supposed to be funny and uplifting? The current Speaker is neither (at least unintentionally), unless she’s talking about her husband’s proclivity for driving while inhibited or her always impressive stock of ice cream stuffed into her $20,000 freezer.
The House leader’s late-night appearance could be chocked up to being part of her “retirement tour” that she seems to be engaging in, including trips to Europe and the far east. It wasn’t all that long ago that Pelosi nearly triggered World War III by stopping in Taiwan as a direct affront to communist China. Nancy goes where she wants to, when she wants to, and, apparently, says what she wants to, no matter how delusional she appears.
Personally, I wouldn’t rate Pelosi’s prediction as excessive boasting and definitely not bulletin board material. If anything, I think the 82-year-old partisan Speaker was being honest, even if her prediction has very little chance (according to polls, history and common sense) of coming to fruition. Who knows, maybe San Fran Nan fibs so much to the public and her colleagues that she feels quite comfortable lying to herself as well.
Pelosi’s curious reasoning for her electoral forecast merits further analysis. For a Democrat who obviously despises the very ground Donald Trump walks on in addition to the air he breathes or the Diet Coke he consumes, she certainly must advance him a ton of credit for drawing voters to the booth. Trump attracted nearly 75 million votes in the 2020 election, which would be the highest total in history but for the (probable) millions of ballots containing Joe Biden’s name.
We’re not relitigating the 2020 election here, just making a point.
Pelosi is correct – Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot this year, though the MAGA agenda certainly is. For as much as the Speaker, Majority Leader “Chucky” Schumer and president senile Joe Biden have name dropped the former president (in a negative way, of course), he might as well be listed as a write-in shadow candidate for every political race in America.
Everyone realizes Trump was heavily involved in most of the salient Republican primaries this year – and the vast majority of his endorsees won – so it’s arguable that the longtime real estate developer and reality TV star is indeed on the ballot, especially since Democrat candidates are making hay over their Republican opponents’ connections to him.
So I’m not quite in agreement with Nancy P. that Trump isn’t on the ballot this year. Liberal pundits and commentators swear that congressional Republicans never do anything without considering Trump’s reaction first, so why would they claim he’s not going to influence the outcome in next month’s elections? And if Trump does impact the outcome, wouldn’t it be by helping Republicans?
Suggesting that Democrats will do well this year – as they did in 2018 – by not having Trump on the ballot isn’t swagger, necessarily, but it is wishful thinking. Of course, Pelosi must confidently state that Democrats will hold the House this year. What else would we expect her to say, “We’re going to get drubbed”?
On the surface, the outcome of the pursuit for the lower chamber majority is all the marbles for the poor woman. If, as expected, Democrats lose a couple dozen (or more) seats, new Speaker Kevin McCarthy will have the requisite power he needs to impose a Republican agenda on the poor minority party, including a multitude of investigations, defunding of whatever Democrat programs the newly empowered conservatives have the gumption to stop and a full-fledged public relations campaign against the Biden justice department.
Just savor the thought of Hunter Biden quivering as he raises his right hand and swears to tell the truth under oath. If they’re smart, Republicans will question former Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski for hours in front of the TV cameras, extracting every last juicy detail to pose to the sleazebag first family scumbag. Then the GOP should call Christopher Wray to answer for why the FBI failed to follow up on clear and damaging leads of Biden corruption.
If and when Republicans do take over, Pelosi faces spending her last House term in the minority – and probably not as Minority Leader. Several Democrats quoted in Lord’s story called for new party leaders after Pelosi and company failed to outlaw stock trades by congressmen. Not only is there a wide ideological gap among Democrats, there’s a growing age and generational division as well.
Even if they win, there’s very little chance that a reelected Democrat House majority would want Pelosi back as Speaker. The San Franciscan is seen as too old, too compromised by Washington and too “moderate” to serve as the figurehead for the emerging leftist agitator disguised as a congressperson. AOC and her growing contingent of “Squad” members won’t settle for the compromises Nancy P.’s made with the caucus’s few centrists on the most radical of legislation.
Time and again the leftists preached that Democrats must take advantage of their power while they possessed it. They had a sense of urgency that Pelosi and the other aged Democrat leaders (Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn) lacked. They wanted to charge the ramparts and break through the nation’s procedural defenses. And they saw Pelosi as holding them back.
But for those Democrats from the far-left flank calling for new leaders, what exactly are they trying to accomplish? Democrats are so backwards in their thought processes, perhaps they should flip the accepted wisdom on its head and elect the youngest members of the caucus to be the new party leaders. Can you imagine Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lecturing Democrat members who are decades older and have been in Congress since around the time she was born? Would these lifers swallow their pride and submit to a bunch of snot-nosed “woke” punks?
Besides, what would change if a much younger and more aggressive Democrat replaces Pelosi? The party’s old guard is every bit as out-of-touch and anti-American traditions as the youth group. Can they make a cohesive argument that Pelosi isn’t liberal enough? She’s put forth and passed everything the Democrats sought to accomplish, being stopped only when the filibuster wielding senate wouldn’t go for the kook-fringe agenda.
Perhaps the leftist Democrat core will offer a little “bulletin board material” of their own in the form of outlandish accusations of Republican “extremism” on topics such as abortion or “climate change”. The farther left they go the more likely that they’ll be out on their heels come swearing-in day next January.
One way or another, it doesn’t hurt Nancy Pelosi to do a little electoral trash talking and provide Republicans “bulletin board material” for their campaigns next month. Voters are the ultimate arbiters of the truth, and both sides are gearing up for a “rivalry game” of epic proportions. Conservatives will get to the polls even if Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot this year.
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