Running against Pelosi

Two years ago when the Republican party was falling apart in the Congressional races, one of their most common tactics in swing districts was to try to run against Nancy Pelosi instead of the Democratic nominee.

Our own Heath Shuler was one of the folks they tried that tactic against, running an ad that stated 'The Pelosi game plan: Elect Heath Shuler and others like him, and take over Congress with the votes of illegal immigrants.'

It seemed like a pretty moronic idea even at the time. Nancy Pelosi just is not that well known to average voters, particularly ones who aren't ardent partisans and might be more open minded about who to vote for on an election by election basis.

The results spoke for themselves. The Republicans got completely destroyed, even losing districts that virtually no one would have considered losable.

So you would have thought after that royal drubbing they would have stopped trying to play the Pelosi card. But that would be giving them too much credit.

This issue has gotten a lot of attention this week due to this ridiculous ad Missouri Congressman Sam Graves is running against challenger Kay Barnes. But the same thing is going on here in North Carolina.

The votes had barely even been counted on primary night when Patrick McHenry, who based on the demographics of his district should be at no risk whatsoever, started trying to tie his Democratic opponent to Nancy Pelosi.

That McHenry would even bother is an indication that he's worried about losing this fall, which says something about the job he's done and the current political climate.

Here's some news for you Congressman. The voters don't care about Nancy Pelosi. They made that clear in 2006. If you all want to play by the same book that caused your enormous losses in 2006, then you can expect enormous losses again in 2008.

If Congressional Republicans keep on talking about Nancy Pelosi while their Democratic challengers talk about the issues that voters actually care about, 2006 will be looked back at wistfully by the GOP when it suffers even worse losses this time.