GOP backs away from Pelosi blame

Republican leaders are backtracking on their criticism of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) one day after blaming her for the House’s stunning rejection of a compromise financial rescue bill.

GOP leadership officials toned down their rhetoric significantly on Tuesday after rank-and-file-members publicly expressed outrage with the claim that Pelosi’s partisan floor speech triggered a dozen Republican members to change their minds and reject the bailout measure.

{mosads}Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday on MSNBC that the argument from GOP leaders is “stupid.”

“I don’t know a single Republican who [voted against the bill because of Pelosi’s speech],” Shadegg said. “It was a stupid speech by her, but it didn’t move any votes. On an issue of this importance, nobody would be moved by that.”

After GOP leaders held a press conference to lambaste the Speaker on Monday, Michael Steel, a spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said, “Obviously, most Republicans came to the House floor already planning to vote against the bill for a variety of other reasons.

“He was talking only about a relatively small and specific group of members who took the partisan tone of the Speaker’s remarks as a signal that the bipartisanship that has marked this process would not continue after the vote.”

Republican leaders have not released any names of members who were so angered by Pelosi’s comments that they changed their minds.

Some GOP officials also were not pleased with Boehner’s comment on the House floor that the vote on the rescue plan would “separate the men from the boys and the women from the girls.”

The schism between GOP leaders and rank-and-file members comes after the House Conference had unified over the last few weeks amid the energy/drilling debate and Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

But now the conference is split, with elections for GOP leaders in the 111th Congress just weeks away.

During the press conference that followed the Monday afternoon vote, Deputy Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) held up a copy of Pelosi’s speech, saying, “Right here is the reason, I believe, why this vote failed, and this is Speaker Pelosi’s speech that, frankly, struck the tone of partisanship that, frankly, was inappropriate in this discussion.”

Rob Collins, Cantor’s chief of staff, said on Tuesday that the speech itself didn’t switch votes, but the message that it sent poisoned the bipartisan tone that Boehner and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) set.

“Her unscripted attacks ran counter to our message of bipartisan unity … I am not going to say her speech on the floor mattered, but it is a symptom of a larger illness with the Speaker,” Collins said.

During a Tuesday interview on Fox News, House Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (Fla.) did not mention Pelosi’s floor speech.

Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said on Monday evening the speech wasn’t the sole cause for members voting no, but tipped the scales for some who were on the fence.

“On those kinds of decisions [members] are often looking for that final reason to not do what they intended to do,” he told reporters after the vote.

Shadegg, who mounted failed leadership bids for majority leader, and later, minority whip, said he believes that “hurt feelings” following the lost votes caused Boehner and other GOP leaders to lash out at Pelosi in the moments after the 205-228 tally.

{mospagebreak}“It was embarrassing for leadership of both parties to lose the bill,” Shadegg said. “So they went out and made a stupid claim.”

During the MSNBC interview, Shadegg didn’t mention McCain, who echoed GOP leaders’ comments about Pelosi on Monday.

Freshman Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who was among the 133 Republican “no” votes, ridiculed leadership’s statements on Pelosi, saying on Monday, “We’re not babies who suck our thumbs.”

{mosads}Some conservatives also ripped leadership’s claims. Richard Viguerie, a conservative activist, said Tuesday that Republican leaders reacted to the bailout vote “by giving Nancy Pelosi credit for killing the Bush-Paulson scheme, and by falsely accusing their own members of throwing a temper tantrum.”

 Peter Wehner, a former speechwriter for President Bush, called the insinuation that the vote failed because of Pelosi’s speech “lame and adolescent” on National Review Online’s The Corner.

“Can they be serious? Do they realize how foolish and irresponsible they sound? On one of the most important votes they will ever cast, insisting ‘the speech made me do it’ is lame and adolescent,” he wrote. “Watching Boehner, Blunt, and Cantor blame the outcome on the Pelosi speech was an embarrassment.”

“That Republican House leadership suggests that Republicans would defeat a bill based solely on a non-consequential speech is absolutely ludicrous,” said one GOP aide. “Their time would be better served focusing on the substantive objections that members have raised rather than injecting more politics into this debate.”

The rescue plan failed by a dozen votes. Ten of 19 House Republican ranking members voted against the bill, including Reps. Joe Barton (Texas), Bob Goodlatte (Va.), Duncan Hunter (Calif.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), Don Young (Alaska), Ralph Hall (Texas), Steve Chabot (Ohio), Doc Hastings (Wash.), John Mica (Fla.) and Steve Buyer (Ind.).

On Monday, Rep. George Radanovich (R-Calif.) switched his vote from no to yes and Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.) switched his from yes to no. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) switched his vote twice, his final vote rejecting the bill.

Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) did not vote. A call to his office was not returned.

Pelosi’s office declined to comment for this article.