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History is being made in the Gallup generic congressional poll:

Republicans lead by 51% to 41% among registered voters in Gallup weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. The 10-percentage-point lead is the GOP’s largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup’s history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress….

The Republican leads of 6, 7, and 10 points this month are all higher than any previous midterm Republican advantage in Gallup’s history of tracking the generic ballot, which dates to 1942. Prior to this year, the highest such gap was five points, measured in June 2002 and July 1994. Elections in both of these years resulted in significant Republican gains in House seats.

ATTN: House pages – Speaker Pelosi will be needing some packing boxes.

From Chris Cillizza

Pelosi sends out fundraising appeal that starts: “Here is what will happen in November. Democrats will keep control of the House.” Subtle.

Subtle…and wrong.

It’s getting really crowded under there:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bashed White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Tuesday night, even as the president’s top spokesman continued to backpedal from his assertion that Democrats could lose control of the House in the November election.

The fusillade from Pelosi and other Democrats at a closed-door meeting escalated an already fiery clash between the White House and its own party in Congress. During the tense evening meeting, the speaker grilled the top White House aide in attendance, senior legislative affairs staffer Dan Turton, about the impact of Gibbs’ comments.

“How could [Gibbs] know what is going on in our districts?” Pelosi told her members in the caucus meeting in the basement of the Capitol Tuesday night. “Some may weigh his words more than others. We have made our disagreement known to the White House.”

Then she turned to Turton and asked him to acknowledge that Gibbs’ comments had been damaging to the Democratic cause, Democratic insiders said. Gibbs was not in the room for this meeting.

Turton, responding to both Pelosi and accusations from Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), said Gibbs was speaking off the cuff and not from prepared material during a controversial appearance on Meet the Press Sunday, sources said.

The outburst from House Democrats illustrates the pressure lawmakers are feeling from an impending election and the strain of the tension – and occasionally enmity— that has characterized relations between an increasingly unpopular president and a House majority facing the possibility of huge electoral losses.

Democratic lawmakers also tried to pin their woes on the White House, saying that control of the House might not be in play if the Obama administration had done a better job of messaging on the party’s agenda and accomplishments.

And while Gibbs’ remarks on “Meet the Press” on Sunday comport with the judgment of political prognosticators, they frustrated Democrats who understood the power they could have as fodder for Republicans in building support – financial and otherwise – for their House campaigns.

Gibbs made the mistake of speaking the truth, and truth to Pelosi is like sunlight to vampires (at least the ones that don’t sparkle).  Pelosi will continue to try and project an image of confidence and strength…right up until the point she loses her majority.

Great idea!

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is doubling down on healthcare reform, betting that it will do Democrats more good than harm in November’s elections.

She and her leadership team have seized on new polls that suggest healthcare overhaul’s popularity is rising, and they are urging members of Congress to use this week’s recess to tout the new law.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the party leadership have sent lawmakers back to their districts urging them to hold town hall-type meetings to highlight the law’s benefits, in the belief it could help Democrats avoid major losses in November.

Recent polls indicate a slow but steady uptick in the popularity of healthcare reform. Despite Republican hopes that the law’s controversial passage will win them seats this fall, the Democrats’ actions show they still consider the issue a political winner.

Do you know why Obamacare has showed a slight increase in popularity? Because it hasn’t been in the news for weeks now thanks to the Gulf Oil Spill and other subjects. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as the old saying goes.  Bringing Obamacare back into the public eye, knowing even more about it today than we did when it passed, will backfire big time on Pelosi and the Dems.

That’s why I heartily endorse this new plan.

From the gathering of progressive loons in Washington:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) remarks to a gathering of progressive activists at the America’s Future Now conference on Tuesday were greeted by screaming protesters, forcing Pelosi to literally yell parts of her speech.

There’s shaky video at the link.

UPDATE:  A second report:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is heckled by Code Pink at an event in Washington, D.C.

“We supported Obama, we supported you, now 21 states are begging for money to help us save the community,” a woman screamed at Pelosi.

“You have made your point,” Pelosi said in an attempt to quiet the protesters.

An aide informed her that they are “throwing stuff.”

More video here.

Oh brother. Nancy Pelosi, of the Diocese of the Catholics by Convenience, thinks she’s doing the Lord’s work in Congress:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says she believes she must pursue public policies “in keeping with the values” of Jesus Christ, “The Word made Flesh.”

Pelosi, who is a Catholic and who favors legalized abortion, voted against the ban on partial-birth abortion that was enacted into law in 2003.

At a May 6 Catholic Community Conference on Capitol Hill, the speaker said: “They ask me all the time, ‘What is your favorite this? What is your favorite that? What is your favorite that?’ And one time, ‘What is your favorite word?’ And I said, ‘My favorite word? That is really easy. My favorite word is the Word, is the Word. And that is everything. It says it all for us. And you know the biblical reference, you know the Gospel reference of the Word.”

“And that Word,” Pelosi said, “is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word. The Word. Isn’t it a beautiful word when you think of it? It just covers everything. The Word.

“Fill it in with anything you want. But, of course, we know it means: ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.’ And that’s the great mystery of our faith. He will come again. He will come again. So, we have to make sure we’re prepared to answer in this life, or otherwise, as to how we have measured up.”

I highlighted the key phrase – “Fill it in with anything you want”.  That’s the credo of Catholics by Convenience.  They’ve “filled it in” with abortion, homosexual rights, redistribution of wealth, and anything else that they wish Jesus had really said but didn’t.

I’ll never understand why the Catholic Church doesn’t throw people like Pelosi out of there. She’s giving the religion a bad name as she flaunts their beliefs and sacred traditions. I have more respect for Muslims who go after infidels than I have for a Catholic Church that won’t weed out the people who ignore their teachings while continuing to proclaim their piety.

Geez, when are these people gonna get a new playbook?

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., blamed the Bush administration for any lack of oversight leading up to the Gulf oil spill. The Obama administration, on the other hand, is blameless.

From Talk Radio News Service:

“Many of the people appointed in the Bush administration are still burrowed in the agencies that are supposed to oversee the [oil] industry,” Pelosi said when asked if Democrats could have prevented or mitigated the crisis by keeping a closer watch on the industry.

Added the Speaker, “the cozy relationships between the Bush administration’s agency leadership and the industry is clear…I’ve heard no complaints from my members about the way the president has handled it,” Pelosi stated.

On Friday, the Washington Examiner requested that Speaker Pelosi’s office release the list of Bush appointees to whom she was referring. We’ll let you know when we hear back.

The “blameless” Obama administration felt it necessary to have BP bus in 400 temporary workers to clean up the beach before Obama could walk along it and “discover” tar balls in the sand. What wasn’t mentioned was that it’s always possible to find tar balls on Gulf Coast beaches just because of natural seepage from the ocean floor.  It doesn’t take a oil spill to make that happen.

Nancy Pelosi is badly misreading the results in PA-12 as I expected she would:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a message for Republicans this fall: Bring it on.

A buoyant Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday basked in the Democrats’ special-election triumph while bashing Republicans and expressing confidence that her party will retain control of the House.

In an interview with The Hill, the Speaker said it was very important to her that Democrats retain the late Rep. John Murtha’s (D-Pa.) seat, which they did Tuesday night.

Pelosi, who was very close with Murtha, said Republicans once again tried to nationalize an election by way of an “anti-Obama, anti-Pelosi” message.

“It didn’t work,” Pelosi said, calling the strategy Republicans have employed regularly in recent years “predictable.”

Asked about House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) recent claim that there are 100 House seats in play, Pelosi responded, “Let him think that.”

She said there are “more than 200” House Democrats who will be reelected “easily,” but cautioned that she never underestimates her opponents.

Mark Critz, the winner in PA-12, ran as the Democrat version of Rush Limbaugh. He was anti-Obamacare, anti-tax hikes, and pro-gun. The only way he could win in a district with a 2-1 Democrat registration advantage was to run against Democrat policies. There are lots of other districts with a much stronger Republican presence that will be tough for Democrats to keep.

Tim Burns is a Republican running in a very Democrat district in Pennsylvania, the district where John Murtha funneled millions of dollars in earmarks and built an airport to nowhere during his lengthy career.  Burns holds a slim 1 point lead in the final pre-election polls and is seeking to make this race a referendum on Nancy Pelosi:

Tim Burns, the Republican candidate for U.S. Representative in Pennsylvania’s 12th district, the seat recently vacated by the death of Congressman John Murtha, told the lunch crowd at Kings Restaurant Sunday afternoon that he never intended to get into politics and his candidacy is a referendum on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Obama administration.

“I think we need people from outside the government, people with common sense business principles that can go to Washington and make decisions in the best interest of the country and the district. Not in the best interest of advancing their career,” Burns said in a interview with Fox News.

Burns accuses his Democratic opponent Mark Critz of pandering to the administration, saying “Nancy Pelosi is holding fundraisers for him, the Vice President Joe Biden was here and Bill Clinton is coming to the district so this is extremely important because people know that a vote for Mark Critz is a vote for the Pelosi-Obama agenda.”

I think this is a good strategy. Pelosi is as far left as they come, farther left than most of her own party. Reminding people that a vote for a Dem is a vote for Nancy Pelosi to continue as Speaker could be very effective in getting even Democrats to think twice about the candidates.

Burns has a good shot at winning this race.  Democrat will likely turn out in big numbers because of the high profile Senate primary between Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak, but Democrat in PA-12 don’t seem to be quite as enamored of their party leaders as those in other parts of the state.

After the 2006/2008 elections conventional political wisdom declared that the nation had undergone a “great liberal realignment” and that Democrat congressional control was here to stay.

Wrong. (h/t Hot Air):

Republicans have reassembled their coalition by reconnecting with independents, seniors, blue-collar voters, suburban women and small town and rural voters—all of whom had moved away from the party in the 2006 elections, in which Republicans lost control of the House. Those voter groups now favor GOP control of Congress…

Mr. Hart noted that, to his own party’s detriment, a series of major news events and legislative achievements—including passage of a sweeping health care law, negotiating a nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia and making a quick arrest in the Times Square terrorism attempt—has not measurably increased support for Democrats. “A lot has happened,” he said, “but the basic dynamic of the 2010 elections seems almost set in concrete.”…

The voters who said they were most interested in the November elections favor Republican control of Congress by a 20-point margin, with 56% backing the GOP and 36% backing Democrats-the highest gap all year on that question…

[D]espite White House predictions that passage of Mr. Obama’s health care bill would boost Democrats in November, the issue still appears to be more of a drag on the president’s party. Some 44% called the health plan a bad idea, compared to 38% who saw it as a good idea.

I’m predicting 61 seats in the house. Probably 7-8 in the Senate. Speaker John Boehner and a quick retirement by Nancy Pelosi.

That used to be an unrealistic dream, but not anymore.