Nancy Pelosi Quitting If Democrats Lose?

It's Looking Like Speaker or Nothing for Pelosi

(Yahoo! News) - Democrats on Capitol Hill and K Street are increasingly convinced that Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have little interest in being Minority Leader -- and may start preparing to leave Congress altogether -- if Republicans win the House next week.

Pelosi and her allies adamantly refuse to entertain questions about a possible Democratic minority. But Democratic sources say they have a hard time imagining the 70-year-old, independently wealthy California Democrat would want to return to the less-powerful post that she held for four years before becoming Speaker in 2007, particularly after having spent the past four years driving the Congressional agenda.

Should Republicans sweep into power on Nov. 2, the pivotal question that some Democrats have begun contemplating is one of timing: Does Pelosi step aside immediately, or does she stick around for a few months as Minority Leader to help smooth the transition to her successor? Both scenarios assume Pelosi heads for the exits within a few weeks or months.

"It's pretty clear that what she does is just leave," said a former House leadership aide who now works downtown. The Democrat had no direct knowledge of Pelosi's plans but predicted she would probably resign from Congress in fairly short order. "Once you've been Speaker of the House, why would she just want to be a Member of Congress?"

Pelosi's predecessor, former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), opted not to run for Minority Leader when Republicans lost the House in 2006; he resigned from Congress slightly more than a year later, on Nov. 26, 2007, after fading into obscurity.