Nancy Pelosi remains a favorite Republican villain a week after her husband’s attack
Whatever sympathy the GOP and its candidates might have for Paul Pelosi, it’s not spilling over to his wife.
One week after Paul Pelosi was viciously attacked in his home, Republicans continue to portray his wife, powerful House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as the root of much Democratic evil.
Head to the website of the Republican’s congressional campaign committee. At the top of the site, the reader is urged to “Text VICTORY to 21818 to help RETIRE Nancy Pelosi!”
The committee is helping pay for an ad promoting Assemblyman Kevin Kiley. Its warning: “Nancy Pelosi-Kermit Jones. Making Things Worse.” Jones is Republican Kiley’s Democratic opponent in the 3rd District congressional race. On Newsmax’s ”Natonal Report” Thursday, Kiley complained about “Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi’s Congress.”
On the same program, Republican congressional candidate John Duarte criticized Biden, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Pelosi for their “liberal socialist policies.”
Look around the website and there’s more Pelosi outrage. If you’re shopping, try “FirePelosi.com,” where you can buy a “Fire Pelosi” coffee mug for $20 or a “Fire Pelosi Black Beverage Cooler (Set of 2)” for $15. The site is affiliated with WinRed, which describes itself as the “official online fundraising platform designed to help the GOP win..”
If you want to show support for the state GOP, visit the California Republican Party website, where a “Fire Pelosi Black Fitted Women’s Jersey T-Shirt” is available for $25.
The attack
On and on this has gone this week, a week of horrific revelations about how suspect David DePape allegedly attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer last Friday. DePape told police he wanted to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage and kneecap her if necessary. Pelosi was not home at the time.
DePape has been charged by the state with assault, attempted murder and, attempted kidnapping, and has pleaded not guilty. He also faces federal charges of attempted kidnapping of a U.S. official.
Critics say the violence and threats are the inevitable result of years of GOP demonizing of Pelosi. Two days before the attack, GOP campaign committee chairman Tom Emmer, R-Minn., tweeted a video of him shooting a gun at an unseen target.
“Enjoyed exercising my Second Amendment rights with @KellyCooperAZ & General @JackBergman_MI1,” he said in a tweet. Bergman is a Republican congressman from Michigan and Cooper, a Republican, is running for Congress in Arizona.
Emmer, who denounced the attack on Paul Pelosi, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” of his tweet, “It wasn’t an ad. I was tweeting out something I had just done,”
As is almost always the case, one’s party preference tends to determine just how unseemly any of this is. If at all.
Republicans insist that linking the attack with their rhetoric and ads is wrong.
“I think this is a deranged individual,” “ Republican Party Chair Ronna McDaniel told “Fox News Sunday this week. “You can’t say people saying let’s fire Pelosi or let’s take back the House is saying go do violence. It’s just unfair,”
Still, the ads keep coming.
No one from the Conservative Leadership fund, the McCarthy Victory Fund, the California Republican party or the GOP’s House campaign committee responded to requests for comment.
Pelosi and Republicans
Nancy Pelosi has led her party in the House since 2003 and represents too much of what Republicans think their constituents loathe.
“Pelosi is in their face. She’s in the news all the time and on social media all the time,” said Tobe Berkovitz, an advertising expert at Boston University and former political consultant.
She’s known in Washington as a strong political force who keeps her often-fractured Democratic caucus together and wins big votes. Pelosi has been instrumental in winning passage of Obamacare, a massive infrastructure plan, COVID relief efforts and, this summer, legislation to reduce prescription drug costs for seniors and to take big steps to encourage cleaner energy.
All of which has made her a predictable target throughout the 2022 congressional campaign. It seems no matter who the Democratic opponent is the one constant message is to link that candidate to Pelosi.
In the House Republicans’ “Commitment to America” — its platform outlining its agenda should it win the House — there’s a huge picture of Pelosi on the front of the website. Her photo appears just above the number of “illegal border crossings since Biden’s oath” and next to the phrase “record high drug overdoses.”
Ads also tear into Pelosi. The Conservative Leadership Fund blasted Democrat Jay Chen,a small businessman trying to topple Rep. Michele Steel, R-Seal Beach, in a closely watched race. The group’s ad says simply: “Jay Chen supports Pelosi’s reckless spending plan.”
In another swing race, Republican challenger Scott Baugh appeared Tuesday on conservative Fox News’ “Ingraham Angle.” Host Laura Ingraham introduced him by noting Democratic incumbent Katie Porter “voted 98% of the time with Pelosi and Biden.”
No exception locally
In the Sacramento area, Kiley has at the top of his twitter feed a pledge to defeat “Biden and Pelosi’s radical agenda.”
He’s run ads featuring a ghoulish and grim Pelosi as he seeks the congressional seat in a newly-drawn district that includes Placer, Nevada, Mono, Sierra, Inyo, Plumas and Alpine counties and parts of Sacramento, El Dorado, and Yuba counties.
The ads have been spotted in local media the last week, though the campaign said it took them out of circulation before the attack. It is not unusual for broadcasters to continue to run such ads, though.
One ad says in big letters, “Nancy Pelosi-Kermit Jones. Making Things Worse,” and cites the “Pelosi-Jones agenda.” It goes on to blame that agenda for higher gas prices, among other things.
Democrat Kermit Jones, Kiley’s opponent, has never served in Congress or held elective office. He told The Bee he has never met Pelosi, and would not commit to backing her for Democratic leader if he wins.
Another Kiley ad starts with Pelosi hovering over the Capitol. It then says, “Nancy Pelosi’s choice: Kermit Jones.” It lists different ways Jones supposedly agrees with her, including defunding the police.
Neither Jones nor Pelosi, however, support defunding the police. Jones told The Bee that if elected, “I’m not coming in here as a Nancy Pelosi person.”
Kiley has expressed sympathy for Paul Pelosi. “The attack on Mr. Pelosi is despicable and unacceptable in a civil society,” he said. “ The perpetrator should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Most Republican congressional leaders have made similar comments. Still, others have been less sympathetic.
“Nancy Pelosi, well, she’s got protection when she’s in D.C. Apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection,” Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a Republican, told a Scottsdale audience this week. Apparently many in the crowd laughed.
A backlash against Republicans?
There’s some thought that anti-Pelosi ads don’t work.
Republicans need to be careful, said California Republican consultant Matt Rexroad.
“I don’t think Republicans or swing voters like her any more than they did last week,” he said. “However, the timing of ads politically attacking her after the crime committed against her husband would seem tone deaf at this time.”
Travis Ridout, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks and analyzes campaign ads, had a similar thought.
Republicans have plenty of issues they can stress, he said, notably inflation and crime.
“And while I don’t think it would be large,” Ridout said, “there is a potential for a backlash by continuing to bash someone whose husband was the victim of violence.”
One effect of the attack-related publicity is that people are more aware of Pelosi, said Benjamin Highton, professor of political science at the University of California, Davis.
“Whether this has electoral implications is difficult to say,” he said. Usually a political event has only a modest influence at best in being a deciding factor in a vote.
“Of course, when elections are close,“ Highton said, “marginal effects can be more than enough to tip outcomes,”
This story was originally published November 5, 2022 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Nancy Pelosi remains a favorite Republican villain a week after her husband’s attack."
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