Running against Pelosi pays off

McClatchy:

If all politics are local, don't tell that to Jimmy Higdon .

Higdon, a Republican from Kentucky , won a state Senate seat in December in a largely Democratic district with an unlikely strategy: He nationalized his race, warning of one-party rule by featuring Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's pictures in his television advertisements and campaign literature. Higdon, who was outspent by a 4-to-1 margin in the race, is happy that she's so unpopular.

"It worked for me. ... And I'm really happy that I had a good team that recognized that," he said. "Because that's not something I would have dreamed up."

Expect the Republican Party to replicate the strategy in races around the country this year.

"The strategists will try to make her the lightning rod who represents all that is wrong in Washington ," said Jeffrey McCall , a media studies professor at DePauw University in Indiana .

Pelosi, who has a job approval rating of 39 percent in her home state of California , is taking hits from all sides these days.

Newspaper cartoonists and comedy writers routinely take jabs at her, and many Democratic women are still smarting from the speaker's decision to support Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary.

"The thrill is gone. ... The speaker didn't turn out to be the elected official that many of us hoped," said Mary Ellen Balchunis , a political science professor at LaSalle University in Philadelphia . "Instead, many of us see her as another politician." Balchunis said Republicans were "trying to make her the Hillary."

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I think this should be an effective strategy where Democrats are running in conservative districts. It is one vote they cannot finesse. By voting for her for speaker, they are insuring that she will be able to push a liberal agenda.