Reimagining Speaker Pelosi

John Boehner realizes, if many Republicans don't, that retaining the House is no sure thing.

• By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

Conservatives are by nature optimists. They are intensely focused on retaking the White House and the Senate. But what if, in that optimism, they are missing a growing threat?
That threat is to the House of Representatives. Republicans claimed a sweeping victory there in 2010, a win that stopped President Obama's marauding legislative agenda. Yet that has led to a certain Republican nonchalance about the House in 2012.


What the optimists are missing is that the House remains the linchpin of all their future ambitions. A Republican presidency will mean little with Speaker Nancy Pelosi redux. Mr. Obama may well win re-election. What leverage will a Republican-run Senate have in the face of that, and a Democratic House? Or consider the possibility that Republicans botch both the Oval Office and the Senate.
True, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), under Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, is aware of the challenge and is energetically fund-raising and recruiting. True, the party is already coaching its newer members about the rigors of re-election. And true, John Boehner and Eric Cantor are going all out to collect money for their members. The speaker alone raised some $46 million in 2011—nearly double his take for the entire last election cycle.
What Messrs. Boehner and Cantor know is that they'll need all this, and more. The House is no sure thing.
For all the Republican wins in 2010, Mr. Boehner presides over a modest 25-seat majority. Redistricting has not turned out to be the giant boon some Republicans thought it might be, and the party is playing to beat about 20 sitting Democrats and to win about a half-dozen open seats. But here's the number that counts: An estimated 55 Republican seats are competitive—i.e., at risk—this year.

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Associated Press

Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hands the gavel to John Boehner on Jan. 5, 2011.

That includes many of the 89 freshmen who washed into the House in 2010. Those new members bring high enthusiasm, but over the past 30 years parties have lost on average 10% of their rookies in their first re-election effort. If Mr. Boehner bats the average, he's nine down at the start.
Then there's the map. All the talk is of super PACs and the money they will bring to the Republican cause. Yet those groups are looking to spend their dollars efficiently. Most are targeting the 16 states where the presidential race will be competitive, with a special focus on those with key Senate races.
Reince Priebus, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, has done a remarkable job of rebuilding an outfit left in tatters by his predecessor. Yet he began with a mountain of debt, and what money he has raised will first go to a tight presidential race, including his get-out-the-vote effort. The eventual Republican nominee will not be spending a penny in states where he has no chance of victory—say, Illinois or California or New York.
That leaves a whopping stretch of land with no broad conservative ground game. By some estimates, House Republicans are playing for some three dozen races in these "orphan states." How much might this matter? Consider New York, which in 2010 was a case study in lost opportunity. House Republicans lost three crucial House races by a total of just 12,000 votes.
Nor should Republicans be lulled by reports of conservative enthusiasm. Democrats have their own enthusiasm, and it is disproportionately centered on the House.
All those liberals who are angry with Barack Obama have rechanneled their energy into putting the gavel back in the hands of their hero, Nancy Pelosi. That's why the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee out-raised its Republican counterpart by $7 million last year. And Mr. Obama will swell voter turnout. Republican seats that are safe in a midterm are not in a presidential election.
Conservatives have made the mistake of overlooking the House before—and recently. The 2010 election was long focused almost exclusively on flashy Senate races. It wasn't until the summer that the party realized the House potential and the money men scrambled to donate to campaigns. Had those dollars been directed to the House earlier in the year, for vital projects like voter registration, Mr. Boehner's victory would have been more impressive and provided more room for error today.
The super PAC and voter focus on big Senate races has helped deny money for the House this year too. Many House members who are in safe districts—those who might be counted on to transfer cash to the NRCC now—remain so nervous that the Club for Growth will whack them with a primary challenge that they are sitting on their own dollars.
There are plenty of reasons to remain optimistic about a GOP House. Then again, seats are not won on optimism alone. That takes planning. If conservatives really do want to reverse the Obama agenda, they'll start looking at the House as priority, not afterthought.