Pelosi-Backed Push to Steal Iowa House Seat Fails, and the Reason Why Should Be Heeded by the GOP
The dispute in Congress over Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District race is now officially over.
Democrat nominee Rita Hart, who took her case to the Democrat-controlled House in December, instead of the courts, after losing the election by 6 votes to her Republican opponent, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, released a statement on Twitter just minutes ago declaring that she was withdrawing her petition to the House Administration Committee because she couldn’t effectively combat the wave of negative PR she and her fellow Democrats brought on themselves over the issue:
“After many conversations with people I trust about the future of this contest, I have made the decision to withdraw my contest before the House Committee on Administration. Since Election Day, and throughout this entire process, my mission has been about ensuring the voices of Iowans who followed the law are not silenced. I am saddened that some Iowans’ votes will not count through no fault of their own,” she said.
“Despite our best efforts to have every vote counted, the reality is that the toxic campaign of political disinformation to attack this constitutional review of the closest congressional contest in 100 years has effectively silenced the voices of Iowans. It is a stain on our democracy that the truth has not prevailed and my hope for the future is a return to decency and civility.”
The reality of the situation can be viewed once one reads between the lines of Hart’s statement. Once you dig beyond her hilarious spin about “disinformation” and “democracy,” what she’s really saying here is that the sustained efforts by Republicans to publicly point out the terrible optics of Democrats essentially trying to steal a House seat just two months after they impeached Trump, in part, over not accepting the results of the presidential election were too much for her to overcome.
She put Democrats in a bind the moment she took her case to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who ended up backing her bid and in the process made some wild statements during interviews that further exposed Democrats for the hypocrites that they are.
As further evidence, this report from NBC News’ Jake Sherman indicates that Democratic leaders had become increasingly divided over the issue with some wanting Hart to drop her case before the war of words and embarrassment got worse:
In a prior post, I pointed out that Republicans were using the best tool they had at their disposal (the microphone and social media) to publicly shame Pelosi, Hart, and all the rest of the bad actors on the left for what they were trying to do to Miller-Meeks.
Hart’s withdrawal today shows that Republicans were right to continue to bang the drum instead of meekly retreating to the corner and letting this play out in Democrat-run committees. When even staunch Democrats like former Clintonista George Stephanopoulos are using Republican arguments to question fellow Democrats on the wisdom of trying to overturn a House election that was already certified with the winner sworn in and seated, you know you’ve lost the argument.
Republicans need to remember the reasons Hart cited for her withdrawal and tattoo them on their foreheads if necessary: Sometimes the easiest way to defeat Democrats is by using their own arguments against them and not letting up on them one bit until they concede.