Heath Shuler Says He'll Challenge Nancy Pelosi for Democratic Leader Post

7 hours ago

0 Comments Say Something »

Text Size

Contributing Editor

North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler said Sunday he would challenge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the leadership of the Democratic minority in the next Congress although he acknowledged that he does not have the votes to win.

"We've just come off the largest ... loss for the Democratic Party in almost a century," Shuler said on CNN's State of the Union. "And to be able to put Speaker Pelosi as minority leader is truly ... unacceptable for our party."

"If she doesn't step aside then ... I'm going to press forward," he said. "I can add and subtract pretty well. I don't have the numbers to be able to win, but I think it's a proven point for moderates and the Democrat Party that we have to be a big tent. We have to be all-inclusive. We have to invite everyone into the party."

Shuler, a second term congressman, is the whip for the conservative Blue Dog Democratic caucus who lost 24 of their 58 members in the midterm elections. On issues where he cast votes, Shuler sided with the party 83.9 percent of the time, according to the Washington Post, although he opposed the leadership on major items like the health care reform package.

Shuler said, "We've got to be able to recruit. We have to go into those moderate areas, those swing districts, and be able to get great recruits or get back those members of Congress that we lost, be able to have them on the ticket in 2012 to be able to win back the House. And I just don't see that path happening if we have her at the top of the leadership."

He said he had hoped Pelosi would step aside and yield the top leadership positions to the current Democratic majority leader, Steny Hoyer, and majority whip James Clyburn.

Our New Approach to Comments

In an effort to encourage the same level of civil dialogue among Politics Daily’s readers that we expect of our writers – a “civilogue,” to use the term coined by PD’s Jeffrey Weiss – we are requiring commenters to use their AOL or AIM screen names to submit a comment, and we are reading all comments before publishing them. Personal attacks (on writers, other readers, Nancy Pelosi, George W. Bush, or anyone at all) and comments that are not productive additions to the conversation will not be published, period, to make room for a discussion among those with ideas to kick around. Please read our Help and Feedback section for more info.