Just when everyone thought things couldn’t get any worse for the Democrats in Congress with the wreckage still being cleaned from precincts across the country and the Capitol nearly oozing blue blood down its steps, in walks little-known Rep. Heath Shuler to shake things up.
Shuler, a North Carolina Democrat, announced Sunday he would challenge current Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in her run for leader of the now-minority party in the House of Representatives.
Saying that allowing Pelosi to continue to lead the Democrats in the House is “unacceptable,” Shuler said he’s going to “press forward” in forcing Pelosi to fight for the leadership.
Casting the Democrat from all-too-liberal California as, well, too liberal, Shuler also said he’s the better moderate choice to Pelosi’s tree-hugging, health-care-lauding West Coast style for the Democrats.
And Shuler knows he can’t win.
Adding he doesn’t have the votes to beat the powerhouse that is Pelosi, Shuler’s challenge acts more as a warning to Democrats in Congress fighting for “liberal” things like social welfare and health care.
And after a “shellacking” in the midterm elections, Democrats don’t need in-party quarreling. Although Shuler might have good intentions to bring his party a little to the right to appease more voters come 2012, Shuler is only further segmenting his already-injured party.
We’re just looking forward to Pelosi hopefully singing her own rendition of Beyonce’s “To the left, to the left.”
