Pelosi doesn’t go quietly into the night
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is used to the limelight, even the barbs.
The California Democrat, a 12-term representative from San Francisco, learned politics from her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., congressman and mayor of Baltimore. Pelosi is the first woman to serve as minority leader and speaker of the House of Representatives.
Also, with her husband, Paul Pelosi, she has five children as well as seven grandchildren.
As you might imagine, she’s accustomed to taking the heat and adept at navigating the old boys’ network to the top.
So when Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart recently called Pelosi a hypocrite for embracing budget rules that strip Republicans of their right to filibuster -- a maneuver Pelosi blasted when Democrats were in the minority -- she did not go quietly into the night.
Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami fired back.
“She was not talking about reconciliation in that clip -- it was about judicial nominations and the nuclear option. This has nothing to do with reconciliation. . . . Jon Stewart had it wrong,” Elshami said.
As the Hill’s Bob Cusack noted, “We don’t want to get in the way of a good fight, but a review of newspaper articles and transcripts shows that Pelosi is dead on and Stewart is dead wrong.”
Keep in mind, this is the same Jon Stewart who recently dumped on Jim Cramer, the former hedge fund manager and host of CNBC’s “Mad Money,” for underplaying the risks to investors in the financial markets.
Cramer, who infamously advised his listeners to invest in Bear Stearns just before the company’s stock took a dive, has since said he felt sabotaged by Stewart.
“He told my staff that it was going to be fun, convivial, no clips,” Cramer recently told the Lantern’s Dan McKeever. “His goal was just to humiliate and destroy me and probably get me fired, and last I looked, I still have a show.”
Cramer said that although the interview was “allegedly disastrous” for his career, “my [ratings] have never been better.”
Maybe the silver lining for Pelosi?
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Bill Clinton hits the trail again
Just when you thought you were out, you jump back in.
Bill Clinton, the ex-president whose chief political fundraiser now wants to run for office, will provide some payback next week in Virginia.
Terry McAuliffe would like to become the next Democratic governor of Virginia, succeeding Tim Kaine, whose gubernatorial career will be terminated by term limits next year.
The Ticket noted back in December McAuliffe’s prefabricated commonwealth listening tour to confirm that he was going to run and was prepared to spend a whole lot of other people’s money to win.
McAuliffe has been very good at raking in money for Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, though she lost the 2008 presidential primary and is still working on her debts from that campaign with some bizarre showbiz gimmicks.
But here’s the little trick to Virginia state campaigns: There are no limits on how much anyone can give anyone.
The governor’s office is out for bid.
So on Monday, Big Bill -- who hasn’t been out campaigning for someone in days -- will hit the trail for McAuliffe in Richmond and Roanoke. Polls show McAuliffe in a close three-way Democratic struggle with R. Creigh Deeds, a state senator, and Brian Moran.
In a debate this month for the June primary, all three agreed on most issues, but Deeds tried to enhance his profile by making an issue of his opponents’ expansive fundraising, especially from wealthy out-of-staters.
In fact, the Democratic trio spent much of the intraparty debate time denouncing their Republican opponent, Robert McDonnell, mentioning him 23 times.
So, if you’re keeping score at home, Bill Clinton, who used to be a governor, is going to help Terry McAuliffe, who used to be chairman of the Democratic National Committee, become governor of Virginia because the new Democratic president, Barack Obama, who beat the former president’s wife, the former first lady, has named the current governor of Virginia as the new part-time chairman of the Democratic National Committee, which would seem to make Kaine also a part-time governor of Virginia.
But voters can’t do anything about it because governors there are allowed only one term anyway.
By becoming full-time DNC chairman next year, Kaine will earn some D.C. cred in case Obama wants a younger fellow Harvard lawyer in 2012 to replace an old vice president, Joe Biden, who became a senator way back when Obama was learning about flax in sixth-grade geography class.
In case you’re from the Chicago school of politics and think that money has any connection to winning elections, in the first three months of this year Deeds reported collecting $730,000, Moran $800,000 and McAuliffe $4.2 million, including nearly $3.4 million (80%) from people who can’t vote in Virginia. With ballots anyway.
“I’ve got a lot of friends,” McAuliffe said.
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They’d rather have Spitzer back
And you thought George W. Bush was unpopular this winter. Here’s how unpopular New York Democratic Gov. David Paterson has become:
Remember Democrat Eliot Spitzer? New York governor? Forced to resign?
Client No. 9 on federal wiretaps? The high-priced call girl? Ashley Alexandra Dupre? On a boat somewhere? With her pair of big sunglasses?
Well, a new poll finds that nearly twice as many New Yorkers would rather have the disgraced Spitzer back than keep Paterson, who faces an election next year.
Dupre’s name was not included as a poll option.
Thirteen months after Lt. Gov. Paterson inherited the office, a telephone poll of 682 registered voters in the Empire State finds that only 8% prefer him in office.
Fourteen percent would rather have Spitzer back, 33% would take former Gov. George Pataki, and 39% prefer former Gov. Mario Cuomo.
Sixty-three percent have an unfavorable opinion of Paterson; 57% think the state is headed in the wrong direction. Forty percent describe Paterson’s job performance as poor. And 1% -- or about seven people -- rate his job performance as “excellent.”
Other than that, things are looking really good for the governor’s 2010 reelection.
Wonder whether Republican former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani noticed the poll.
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Neuman writes for The Times.
Read Top of the Ticket, The Times’ blog on national politics, at latimes.com/ticket.