Reply #83: Not true [View All]

[Oak2004]

She can use her position in Congress to marginalize those who insist on bringing the fight to the convention, and her influence to make sure a lot of their reelection funding dries up. Speakers are very powerful people, with a lot of very powerful connections (realize, Pelosi is almost certainly not speaking for herself here, but is operating as the public face of a party faction), and can all but sink the congressional career of someone within his/her own party. Influential members of the party not in Congress could discover their influence has disappeared (with any bills, earmarks, etc. they might have an interest in bottled up eternally in committee or simply never making it that far).

The full force of a Speaker is rarely used against members of her own party. A Speaker who routinely and casually went after her own would certainly be deposed. But avoiding a convention fight thought likely to endanger the party would be seen as a legitimate reason to apply the screws to problematic members. I think you'll see a great many superdelegates, some reluctantly, fall in line behind her.