Word: murtha
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Pelosi will have to answer those questions with her actions in the months ahead. "It was a serious misstep and inexplicable to me," former Republican leader Dick Armey chortled. "I just hope she does more of it." But the Murtha defeat will be largely forgotten if the Democrats under Pelosi's leadership rack up a series of victories on the agenda that she had laid out for her first 100 hours as Speaker, which includes raising the minimum wage, forcing Medicare to negotiate lower prescription-drug prices, cutting student-loan rates and making the national-security fixes recommended...
...under more pressure to push through lobbying and ethics reform but may find that harder to accomplish. After an election in which exit polls showed that voters are more concerned about corruption than the Iraq war, Pelosi needs to recover the high ground she lost with her endorsement of Murtha, who said he thought her reform measures were "total crap." It was bad enough that Murtha's candidacy turned the cable-news networks into a film festival of the grainy tapes from the Abscam sting in 1980, in which the Pennsylvania Congressman told an agent posing as an Arab sheik...
Still, pulling together is not something Democrats do well--even in victory. As the Pelosi-Hoyer-Murtha battle was heating up, Democratic consultant James Carville and pollster Stan Greenberg--both of whom are close to the Clintons--loudly called on Howard Dean to resign as Democratic chairman, saying the party could have won more House seats if he had spent its money more wisely. Liberal bloggers were slamming Emanuel, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, saying he was taking credit for their victories. And the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of the most conservative House Democrats, was mounting...
That first whip race intensified her rivalry with Hoyer and also cemented her bond with Murtha, who managed her campaign. Not only did he get her the votes to win that job but his support also made it possible for other old bulls in the House to begin to imagine a woman rising to the top. The former Marine had a reputation for male chauvinism that stood out even in an institution where the only private rest room adjacent to the chamber is for men. (Women members have to go around the corner and through a reception area...
...that round over the Republicans, but that victory and all the others will be forgotten unless she can regain control over her own caucus. She didn't just politely suggest that people vote for Murtha; she fought hard. Her lieutenants plied the House with phone calls and none-too-subtle threats, including suggestions that anyone who bucked her might lose committee assignments. After Hoyer still drubbed Murtha by a vote of 149-86, Pelosi emerged from the ballot room and pronounced Hoyer's win "a stunning victory." By the look on her face, she meant it. Pelosi went to Hoyer...