Would Pelosi be able to lead a majority?

Create ideological discipline
He argues that Pelosi needs to “try to create some ideological discipline now” — before the election. “If they get into the majority, I don’t want to look at a timeline and see a two-year (majority) blip for the Democrats and then they just blow it” and Republicans win the 2008 elections and dominate the House for the next several years.

“When the party thinks about how to position itself, the fundamental challenge for the party is to define itself on orthodoxies that cut across regions,” he said. “The party’s orthodoxies, at least in the public’s mind, are the issues that are most divisive: choice (abortion rights), guns, same-sex marriage, and the social issues.”

Fortunately for Pelosi, if she becomes speaker, the House rules make it difficult for the minority party to put issues onto the agenda and force votes on them. Since Pelosi would control the agenda, she could prevent votes on issues that divide Democrats.

“Where it would get tough is the stuff where you really are trying to punch the president in the nose, like the Feingold censure resolution. But here’s the beauty: all that stuff — the subpoenas, the hearings — happens at the committee level. So in some ways the margins don’t matter as much…. Henry Waxman doesn’t [care] about how Jim Marshall is going to vote, because Waxman can hold a giant hearing and issue subpoenas.”

He added, “Where you’re going to run into trouble is on issues where they need the whole (Democratic) caucus,” on trade agreements, for instance. “What are they going to do when Bush signs a free trade agreement with Vietnam?” If Democratic leaders bring it up for a vote, “they definitely could lose 20 or 30 of their own members.”

But, said Sirota, Pelosi “could find ways to wedge the Republicans,” such as scheduling votes on stem-cell research funding and other issues that pit Republicans against each another.

Democratic Whip sees 'consensus'
When asked about the roll-call votes that show the divide between the leadership and the members such as Bean, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said, “Our party has been the most unified it has been since 1950, according to Congressional Quarterly. The numbers you mention are relatively small numbers — eight members, out of a party of 202 people, you’re not losing much of your party.”

But Hoyer, who would be the majority leader in a Pelosi House, added, “Your question posits that we may have a 10- or 20-vote margin and, assuming we get no Republican votes, will we be able to pass policies? The answer, I think, is yes.” He says he and Pelosi will “create consensus.”

Hoyer also said, even if Democrats score the success they hope for in November, “We will not be governing, no matter what happens. I expect us to take the Senate and the House, but the president is still going to be a Republican.”

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