Why did Nancy Pelosi delay the Senate impeachment trial? It's all about her ... and 2020
After putting it off for a month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally appointed House managers to deliver the articles of impeachment to the Senate.
She had rushed through the impeachment hearings, insisting it was a matter of greatest urgency. This made her four-week delay very difficult to defend, even against members of her own party.
“The longer it goes on the less urgent it becomes,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said. “If it is serious and urgent, send them over. If it is not, do not send it over.”
At a Wednesday press conference, Pelosi didn’t explain her strategy but took issue with the concept of time itself.
“As you know,” Pelosi said, “I referenced temporal markers that our founders and our poets and others have used over time to place us in time, to emphasize the importance of time, because everything is about time."
Stephen Hawking was unavailable to translate, but time is running out for the Democrats’ presidential candidates. And maybe that’s just how Pelosi wanted it.
Perfect timing ... for Biden and Buttigieg
The Iowa caucuses will be held Feb. 3. The New Hampshire primary follows on Feb. 11. Likely during both, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will be stuck on Capitol Hill as former Vice President Joe Biden and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg barnstorm the early states.
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Conservatives may disagree with Pelosi’s politics but admit she’s a shrewd operator. Since acquittal by the Senate was a foregone conclusion, why on earth would she allow the impeachment telenovela to harm the campaigns of several of her own party’s frontrunners?
Had she immediately sent the articles to the Senate, the timeline would have remained a dicey proposition for the candidates.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would have begun the proceedings weeks earlier but could have prolonged them to mess with his campaign schedules.
“Cocaine Mitch,” however, never had the chance to sow mischief. Pelosi did that for him.
Is Pelosi trying to shut down the left?
When she first cooked up the delay, Pelosi claimed leverage over McConnell. "The next thing for us will be when we see the process that is set forth in the Senate,” Pelosi said, “then we'll know the number of managers that we may have to go forward and who we will choose."
But Pelosi knew Senate Republicans didn’t want to deal with impeachment, be it sooner or later. Despite wish-casting by progressive pundits, Pelosi held a pair of deuces to McConnell’s royal flush. It’s as if the delay wasn’t about impeachment at all.
"There will be no haggling with the House over Senate procedure," McConnell said. "We will not cede our authority to try this impeachment. The House Democrats' turn is over. The Senate has made its decision."
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There, of course, is a simpler explanation for Pelosi’s month-long delay. The speaker wants to harm the more left-leaning presidential campaigns.
Look at it from her perspective. Getting a Democrat into the Oval Office is important, but Pelosi’s priority is to maintain, if not expand, her House majority. She masterfully engineered this in 2018, not by backing leftist candidates, but moderates.
She knows what will keep her in power
Democrats knocked out Republican after Republican, many in red districts, with talk of pre-existing conditions, not socialist revolution. Most voters want modest improvements, not a tearing-down and rebuilding of society at large.
In her heart, perhaps Pelosi agrees with Sanders’ “eat the rich” rhetoric, herself excepted of course.
But that message won’t sell in the suburbs of Phoenix or Philly. Maybe she thinks Warren’s on-again, off-again “Medicare for All” plan would fix health care. But nervous moms in purple states don’t want to lose their private plans.
Nancy Pelosi is a very smart woman and a savvy politician. Her delay tactics didn’t make sense as an impeachment strategy. But they make perfect sense if she wants to keep her speaker’s gavel.
Jon Gabriel, a Mesa resident, is editor-in-chief of Ricochet.com and a contributor to The Republic and azcentral.com, where this column originally appeared. Follow him on Twitter at @exjon.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Nancy Pelosi impeachment trial delay: All about her and 2020 election
