Nancy Pelosi Blames ‘White Males’ for Democrats’ Huge Losses to Republicans in 2010 Midterms
Geoff Earle, Daily Mail, December 14, 2022
The documentary by Nancy Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra reveals the House Speaker speaking to President Barack Obama after Democrats endured the famous off-year ‘shellacking’ – and blaming white male voters getting in a ‘mood’ over the sour economy.
Her assessment came after a wipeout that cost the party its majority, after enactment of Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act, then often derided as ‘Obamacare’ by its opponents.
‘Hey, Mr. President, not a good night,’ Pelosi told him Nov. 2, 2010, according to footage of the call included in the HBO documentary, called ‘Pelosi in the House,’ which also features her mocking a call with Vice President Mike Pence by asking: ‘Am I a b****?’
‘Our members have said they don’t regret their health care bill right across the board. Even if we never passed health care reform, we were still going to lose this election because of 9.5 per cent unemployment. Because it wasn’t about that, it was about jobs,’ Pelosi told Obama.
‘The White male thing is just, that’s a dominant thing,’ she continued with a chuckle. ‘When they don’t have a job, they get in a mood,’ she added, according to Fox News.
‘So we’ll have to make some decisions in our caucus about how we go forward,’ she said.
She was speaking to after 2010 blowout when Democrats lost 63 seats. That was the year when the Tea Party movement shook Washington, and anticipated the later rise of President Donald Trump.
It was a historic drubbing that Obama himself called a ‘shellacking.’ Presidents usually lose House seats two years after they get elected, but this was the biggest loss in decades.
It came after House leaders pushed through Obamacare, a version of health insurance reform that Democrats had pushed for decades. There were also loses, including the collapse of a cap-and-trade plan to address climate change.
Pelosi was also referencing the massive economic dislocations that were part of the ‘great recession,’ which Obama tried to combat in part with a $787 billion economic stimulus package that Republicans battled and some Democrats later said was too small to meet the challenge.
The period after Obama became the first black president featured changes in party identification, from a two year GOP edge among Republicans in 2008 to a 13-point edge in 2011, according to a Pew survey at the time.
Pelosi saluted Obama on Wednesday in the House as a new portrait of her was unveiled, praising him for the health care law that may have wiped out the Democratic majority.
‘It simply would not have happened with out him, that goes without saying almost,’ she said. ‘He was always about the future.’