Nancy Pelosi hints she'll have a short-term lease on House speakership - Polidicks

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-nancy-pelosi-speaker-20181019-story.html?outputType=amp Democrats have yet to win a House majority and Nancy Pelosi’s return as speaker is by no means certain, but already she has one eye on the exits. “I see myself as a transitional figure,” Pelosi said in an interview in which she professed utmost confidence that, should Democrats take control of the chamber on Nov. 6, she will again assume the top leadership position. “I have things to do. Books to write; places to go; grandchildren, first and foremost, to love.” She hastened to add she was not imposing a limit on her tenure. “Do you think I would make myself a lame duck right here over this double-espresso?” the San Francisco Democrat said Thursday in a downtown Miami cafe, with a raised eyebrow and a laugh. By implicitly limiting her time as speaker, Pelosi could ease the pressure to stand aside by signaling her willingness for a new and younger generation of leaders to take over sooner rather than later. Pelosi has quietly been grooming potential successors, among them Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank, and though she said she would be delighted to hand the speaker’s gavel to another woman — “Oh, yeah!” she exclaimed — she has no plans to try to force a choice. “Whoever is next is not up to me,” she said. “If I were saying, ‘I want so-and-so to be my successor,’ that’s not right.” Pelosi, 78, made history in January 2007 when she became the first female speaker in history, a post she relinquished four years later after Republicans seized control of the House in a 2010 midterm landslide. The vote for Democratic leadership will take place after Thanksgiving, allowing time to pass after the Nov. 6 election. As yet, no serious rivals have emerged. Although Pelosi grew up in politics — as a girl she worked on her father’s campaigns for Congress and Baltimore mayor — she did not win election until she was 47 and had ushered her five children out of the household. Pelosi said she never expected to serve more than 10 years. She recalled seeing an elderly House member hobbling on a cane early in her term, and telling a colleague, “It’s never going to be me. I’m not staying around that long.” It’s now been more than 30 years since Pelosi’s election in 1987, though physical infirmity has never been an issue; she routinely works 12- to 18-hour days. Pelosi would have stepped aside as leader, she said, had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election. But with no other woman at the table, Pelosi said, “it was the most urgent of all moments” to keep her seat alongside President Trump, GOP leaders and the top Democrat in the Senate, New York’s Charles E. Schumer.

Now what about Schumer

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/132446/4fcd17ba-cca0-49e5-a7ba-35ef5538693c/image.png I'm sorry but there's just something about this face

It makes me want to perform the eponymous act this forum's named after.