WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee said Sunday his run for House minority leader represents the Democrats' only chance for new leadership after Tuesday's midterm losses.

"If you believe that the same old tired, failed politics of the Democratic Caucus is a direction we ought to travel, then clearly Nancy's your choice," said Ford, referring to Democratic Whip Nancy Pelosi of California.

Ford is challenging Pelosi for the leadership post that Minority Leader Richard Gephardt is giving up after Tuesday's elections, which cost Democrats five House seats and control of the Senate. (Bio of key players)

Democrats are expected to elect their new leader this week. Though Pelosi said Friday she has a majority of the Democratic caucus, Ford told ABC's "This Week," "The race is not over."

"I've made clear the only real change in this race is me," he said.

Ford, 32, is the youngest Democrat in Congress and a member of the "Blue Dog" group of conservative Democrats. He was the keynote speaker at the 2000 Democratic National Convention that nominated former Vice President Al Gore for president.

Ford voted to give President Bush the authority to go to war with Iraq in the confrontation with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Ford said he would offer "constructive opposition" to Bush and the GOP leadership in Congress, saying he was "tired of playing defense all the time."

"I think we can challenge this president and Republicans when they're wrong, and not only challenge them, because all we did in this last election was point out where they were wrong," he said. "What we did not do effectively was say, 'Here's what we're going to do.' "

Ford said Democratic leaders have not only failed to win back control of the House since 1994, "They've not been able to produce the kind of an opposition that Americans feel comfortable with."

Pelosi, 62, a congresswoman from San Francisco, is among the most liberal House Democrats, and she led the opposition to Bush's Iraq resolution. Some Republicans said Pelosi's elevation could help the GOP portray Democrats as drifting away from the center. (Full story)

But Pelosi has rejected the criticism.

"I do think that people elected me to be a leader and not an advocate for my own point of view," she has said. "Everyone in the party has their own place in the spectrum."

If she does win, Pelosi would become the highest-ranking female leader in House history. As minority whip, she now holds the No. 2 Democratic leadership post in the House.

Senate leadership
On the Senate side, Tom Daschle, who soon will lose his post as Senate majority leader, said Sunday there was no need for a "major regrouping," as Gore suggested in a recent interview. The senator from South Dakota also said his leadership post appears secure.

Though candidates backed by the president ousted Democratic incumbents in Georgia and Missouri, Daschle noted that Republicans had 50 Senate seats in 2000 and have 51 in the new term.

"I think that to somehow recognize this as a mandate for Republicans or some condemnation of the Democratic approach is wrong," he told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Daschle said Bush used Republican efforts to stall the creation of a Cabinet-level Homeland Security Department against Democrats, accusing them of blocking the measure. "Never mind the fact that Republicans filibustered the homeland security bill five times," Daschle said.

"All the way through, they've opposed it. They opposed getting it done before the election, so they could blame the Democrats."
www.cnn.com

and so it begins.......

i was wondering how long it would take before they started eating each other.

MMM Soylent Democrats!

"The first victory, on Election Day, gave Republicans control of Congress and the White House for the first time in half a century. The second will come with the election of Pelosi as minority leader. It will allow Republicans to again invoke the image of Democrats as the big-government, high-taxing, over-regulating, entitlement-establishing, unaccountable, irresponsible, gun-confiscating, totalitarian-coddling, peace-at-any-price, ACLU card-carrying, same-sex- marrying, unrestricted-aborting, anything-goes philosophy of the Dukakis-Mondale-McGovern extreme left wing of their party.

Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas), who briefly sought to challenge Pelosi for the leadership job, said,"To be successful (Democrats) must speak to the broad center of the country .. The battleground seats . are swing, marginal, moderate and conservative areas. If we want to write off all those seats, if we want to say,'We want to be to the left, and we want to be pure,' we will be a permanent minority party."

In what could be an epitaph for Democrats in the 2004 election and beyond should Democrats refuse to isolate their left wing, Frost added,"If it's a question of being pure all the time, just standing by certain fundamental beliefs and never compromising, we will be in a minority party for the foreseeable future, and we will have less Democrats than we do today."

Frost endorsed Pelosi when he saw that she had the votes, but his analysis is correct.

Pelosi's voting record is a classic in liberal profiling. For the past two years, the liberal Americans for Democratic Action gave her a 100 percent rating. The same 100 percent approval came from the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL). Pelosi supports abortion on demand at any time, for any reason. She has voted against a measure to outlaw the procedure known as partial birth abortion, which sucks the brains from a fully developed baby as he/she emerges from the birth canal. She voted against a bill that would outlaw transportation of minors across state lines for the purpose of obtaining an abortion unless it was to protect the girl's life.

Pelosi wants the federal government to offer marital status to any type of human relationship. Six years ago, she was quoted in the San Francisco Examiner as saying,"Should you find yourself in a situation where your child or close relatives or close friends find solace, happiness, confidence, love and support in a relationship that's appropriate for them, wouldn't you want them to have the legal recognition they deserve?"

[And they make fun of rednecks mothering their own nephews and fathering their own cousins.]

"Would the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 and the party's congressional candidates like to put that question to the voters?

Democrats have been without new ideas for so long that for their party bankruptcy would be a step up. All they do is whine and complain about Republican"extremists" and demagogue about the elderly, race and class. Their religion is big government. The government is their shepherd, they shall not want. Yea, though the afflicted and discriminated against, the angry and ignored walk through the valley of the shadow of poverty, Democrats will be there comforting them with entitlement checks and empathy. Their lives won't improve, but to Democrats independence and self-sufficiency mean the end of their political power.

New York Times culture columnist Frank Rich last Saturday (Nov. 10) offered his remedy for the disease afflicting the Democratic Party:"A unified vision composed of actual policies and principles, as opposed to knee-jerk liberal sloganeering, cynical political strategies and anti-Bush whining, is now required."

It may be required, but Pelosi and the rest of her special interest-satisfying, Fidel Castro wing of the Democratic Party aaren't about to go there. They would rather be left than president. If Republicans plan their strategy right, Democrats will surely get their wish in two years and possibly for some time to come.

The late GOP Chairman Lee Atwater could beat this San Francisco Democrat with both of his blues guitar-playing hands tied behind his back."

It has a real chance of win-win for every rational moderate.

If Pelosi gets the job, she will either become a moderate, and not be re-elected by the fruits & nuts that are her constituency, or she will work with the Reps to get something done, and again not be re-elected.

And another rabid far-left-wing nut from Cali will become just another in-effective pol yapping shrilly.

Coversely, if the Dems wake up and put a moderate in leadership, he will also work with Reps to get something accomplished, again weakening the far-left influence.

:D