Nancy Pelosi has a message for you. GOTV.
Last week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took time out of her schedule to talk with Daily Kos. You can find the first part of our interview,
in which she reiterated how much is at stake today, here.
I'll repeat a little part of it, to keep you motivated for the day as you work on GOTV:
When we lost the House two years ago it was 250,000 votes that made the difference. [...]
Our founders sacrificed their lives their fortunes, their sacred honor in their words for a government of the many, not a government of the money. [...] The American dream, in my view, is on the ballot, because reigniting the American dream is our theme. Building ladders of opportunity for people who want to work hard, play by the rules, take responsibility. We have work to do to achieve it. We want to put down ladders of success. Republicans, when they succeed, walk away with the ladder.
Here's some highlights included in this, the second half of our talk. Here she's talking about the opportunity, with this election, for the House Democratic caucus to become majority minority.
This has been one of my goals, to have the caucus reach this point because it's certainly not going to happen on the other side and it's certainly important to our country. This gets right to the core of who we are. We are a representative body. Our job description and our title are one in the same: representative. [...] Look, in this election—we have right now 19 Democratic Hispanic Americans [in the House]. We can add 9, we can increase it by 15 percent in this election. [...] So then we'll increase the number of Asian America, gay, lesbian, bisexual, we'll increase their numbers in Congress. So that for me is a big thrill.
On prospects for the House tonight:
It's tough, but it's doable, and it'l all turnout. Only 250,000 votes took the gavel from us in 2010. Now, even much more is at stake. It's a very important election, it's about our democracy, government of the many not government of the money on the ballot. We can't agonize about the money, we just have to organize and offset it by people power on the streets, in the neighborhoods, mano a mano in the districts. I'm excited about it. I know it looks hard, but that's what elections are about.
And on Mitt Romney and whether this campaign has been characterized by lies more than any campaign in memory:
I've never seen [a campaign] with out and out lying by the principle, that a man who would fancy himself to be President of the United States would tell such out and out [long pause] What's the word you can use, what's the euphemism for lying? Misrepresent the truth. And he would be the president. Does he not know that the hundreds of millions were not used to pay for Obamacare? Does he not know the facts? Or does he just decide he's going to use it. Does he not know what the Republicans have done in the Congress and what his own beliefs are and how damaging they are to women? How disrespectful they are? And he fancies himself a champion of women?
So I label what he is doing mythology. It's mythology. Mythology about what he says about Medicare. Mythology about what this election means women. Mythology about how he's going to create 12 million jobs. he's going to create 12 million jobs? With tax cuts for the rich as his only jobs initiative as he returns to the policies of President Bush. I don't like to be disrespectful. I think it's important for us to be respectful to each other. But the fact that campaigns or consultants would exaggerate or engage in hyperbole—nothing new about that. But to have the misrepresentations that the man who would be president putting out there--he doesn't either know or care about the truth, that he would say what he is saying. That I think is quite remarkable.
And her final message to us, after all the money poured in against Democrats and all the lies told in this campaign.
Don't agonize. [...] Organize. Get out the vote.
So there you are, your marching orders from Nancy Pelosi.
Listen to the second part of our interview here: