House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is being pressured to step aside by several of her Democratic colleagues after she announced that she wanted to remain as House Minority Speaker.

Democrats lost control of the House in the recent midterm elections. Minority leader is still a pretty visible position that can be used to push policy, but some Democrats are saying Pelosi is "toxic."

"The reality is that she is politically toxic," said Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley, one of 15 Democrats now openly calling for Pelosi to step aside.

Pelosi announced that she planned to run for minority leader shortly after Democrats were thumped in the midterm elections, not an unusual occurrence after a new party takes the White House. While some are blaming Pelosi for Democrats' poor showing, no one has stepped up to openly challenge for the position yet. And although 15 Democratic lawmakers are speaking against Pelosi, it would take more than 100 for her to lose.

"You would find an unusual number of people not voting for the nominee of their party" if Pelosi were the choice, Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah told the AP.

"There's a growing number of people in the caucus saying, 'Why's she running for minority leader in the first place?' We just got thumped in this election in a major way, and to act like we can just go back and do the same thing over again. It just seems like a very obvious situation when change is called for," Matheson said.

If this internal battle is not resolved amicably, Democrats will only find themselves further weakened heading into the last two years of President Barack Obama's term.




This is a time when Democrats should be uniting around their party goals and thinking about ways to work with Republicans or circumvent them.

If they fail to do so, we are only headed for more gridlock.

You can argue either way for Pelosi to leave or stay. On one hand is the drubbing Democrats just took in the House, losing at least 60 seats. But as I mentioned earlier, that is not uncommon when a new party takes over the White House.

On the other hand, Pelosi conducted herself well as the first woman speaker of the House. She helped to shepherd health care reform and financial reform through. Both are needed in this country but have become targets of right-wing Republicans. More money was spent in negative advertising against Pelosi than any House Speaker since Newt Gingrich (Who is now talking about a 2012 presidential run).

An analysis done for CNN done by the Campaign Media Analysis Group found that Republicans and other interest groups spent $65 million on 161,203 ads targeting Pelosi since last January. That's not even a full year.

I could get people to hate puppies, ice cream and apple pie with that kind of advertising budget.

House Democrats lost the most seats, five, in Pennsylvania where the most ads ran (14,443) and the most money ($8.46 million) was spent.

Salon's Steve Kornacki thinks Pelosi has the ability to stay, mainly because "there's no obvious challenger for dissenters to unite around."

So Democrats can bow to the pressure of Republicans and replace Pelosi with someone who may not be as politically savvy or stand their ground and have Republicans continue to attack Pelosi. Either way, Democrats have something to lose. There is something to be said for not abandoning Pelosi. Democrats would be signaling that there is nothing wrong with trying to provide health care for more Americans and making sure big financial institutions don't run amok.

Pelosi must put her ego aside and make a decision that will benefit the party that represents the goals she says she stands for.

If she runs, she should make sure she is going to win with overwhelming results. If she decides to run and falls victim to an embarrassing showdown, then we could be watching the beginning of President Obama's final term.