House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wants to let Americans know that her San Francisco Giants won the World Series, mentioning it twice today during public appearances. But it has been more than two weeks since the World Series — and no one really cares anymore.
During her weekly press conference on Thursday, the California Democrat brought a baseball signed by some Giants players. Nine minutes in, she held up the ball, derailed the press conference and said, “We have to talk about baseball.”
In the time since the Giants swept the Detroit Tigers, there has been a presidential election and a scandal involving the now-former director of the CIA. There’s also a lame-duck session of Congress and the looming fiscal cliff to worry about. And yet Pelosi is talking about baseball.
She spent the final five minutes of 14-minute press conference talking about the Giants and making an analogy between their diverse team and the diversity represented in Congress, implying that party differences should not prevent Congress from reaching a deal to fix the fiscal crisis. She stressed that they are all playing for the same team: Team USA. She also listed off the players whose signatures were on the ball and talked about the bet she made with Congressman John Dingell of Michigan, who owes Pelosi a gift basket following Detroit’s loss.
Earlier on Thursday, while speaking at the Washington Ideas Forum hosted by The Atlantic magazine, Pelosi also brought up the Giants’ win, using the same analogy.
Pelosi did take some time during her Ideas Forum appearance to criticize former governor Mitt Romney for his 47 percent remark, calling that the “most sincere” thing he said during his campaign. “If you saw that, you saw that ardor, you saw passion, you saw authenticity,” she said. “And that’s what he really believed.” She said Romney’s recent comment about President Obama winning over voters with “gifts” was in line with this previous remark.
Understandably, Pelosi received mostly softball — pun intended — questions during her Ideas Forum appearance. It was not a press conference, but merely an informal chat. To see her waste a third of the press conference on a two-week old topic was disappointing, however. Added to that, it was her first “weekly” press conference since before the election — and since the World Series — making it all the more important for her to not waste precious press conference time.
But considering the President spent a large portion of his reelection campaign talking about ridiculous things, Pelosi’s topic choice for the day makes sense. Looks like Pelosi is playing follow the leader.
