400 attack ads against Nancy Pelosi, aired 130,000 times, coast to coast in this election season.
Eric Cantor (R-VA), future House Speaker, urges House Democrats to pick a minority leader who is ... anybody but Nancy Pelosi.
Is Cantor merely echoing NRCC chair Pete Sessions (R, TX) who told RedState.com back in May, 2010, "Since becoming Chairman of the NRCC, I have had one goal – a goal I share with you: to retire Nancy Pelosi."
Both Sessions and Cantor have two big reasons to push Pelosi offstage -- 1) she is an effective leader and 2) the GOP has invested for years in an effort to bring her down. Scurrilous quotes etc. below the fold.
Republicans got lots of mileage out of demonizing Hillary Clinton to an audience that likes its misogyny raw. When Nancy Pelosi became House Speaker in 2006, and even more so after Obama's landslide victory in 2008, the Republican noise machine went to work to bring her down.
"Mussolini in a skirt with bad rouge; Mussolini if he came back and wore ugly clothing and put on bad makeup and had too much Botox." (Michael Savage, January 2008)
"Get another facelift, lady...Another reason why it's very rare to find a woman worthy of serving in political office." (Chris Baker, September 2008)
"In December 2007, Mrs. Pelosi admitted that she attended the briefing, but she wouldn't comment for the record about precisely what she was told. (What do you think old Nancy is doing here? Is she Botoxing? Does she have selective amnesia? Perhaps, a senior moment?" (Doug Giles, May 2009)
Also in May 2009, the RNC's attack ad equating Pelosi to James Bond villainess Pussy Galore
By February 2010, the NRCC sent out money-raising email "From: Nancy Pelosi"
All the anti-Pelosi attacks were a big investment -- an investment of time, an investment of money, an investment of opportunity to be heard. So were the dollars spent in 2010 on 400 attack ads against Nancy Pelosi, aired 130,000 times, coast to coast.
When you hear Republicans and concern trolls saying Nancy should retire, ask yourself if you want to help them collect on their great big anti-Pelosi investment.