Pelosi on retaking the House: 'We feel pretty good about it'

She's going to get it back. On Monday, Nancy Pelosi sat down with a group of new media reporters for a wide-ranging discussion, including how the nation is better off than it was four years ago, and the truth-challenged Romney/Ryan campaign. All that makes her optimistic about the Democrats' prospects for taking back the House.

[W]e have outraised, out-redistricted, out-recruited the Republicans. I take a little more credit than I should for the recruitment because many of these people self-recruited. They just saw what was happening to our country and said, "I'm not going to let this happen. And I want to be part of the solution." [...]

Some of the places where the polls are looking so good for us are not even on our original map of priorities, so Steve Israel is saying, "I can't even believe some of the polls that we're getting from places that are not even our priority races." And that bodes very well for our priority races. So we think we can get into the 30s. I want 35. I'm willing to say we'll win 35 to net more than 25. But we feel very good.

Now, having said that, they're all close. They're close. These races are close. In one poll that just came out'the Democracy Corps poll'had in the 27 marginal Republican district'in 27 of the difficult Republican districts, difficult for the Republicans'in 27 of those races, by name, the Democrat was around 6 points ahead of the Republicans. That's 27. [...] Twenty-seven. Six points ahead. So we see the makings of it.

Listen to the whole discussion on how Pelosi plans to get the House back.
Nancy Pelosi can envision the speaker's gavel back in her hands, and she sees the specific path for getting there, as you can see in the extended transcript that's below the fold. That's through taking back at 27 seats in districts held by Republicans, but where President Obama won in 2008. Then there are the pick-ups in seats where the unvetted freshman Republicans are "ethically challenged." It's picking up seats in the big states: California, New York, Illinois and Texas. And it's working hard in all the other states to back the strong candidates in states across the map.

That's what we want to do with the Speaker Pelosi Project: find the progressive candidates in the winnable districts that will help Pelosi win her gavel back, and make the House be a functioning body of government again. And make John Boehner cry.

Help prove Nancy Pelosi right in her optimism. Please give $3 to each of our House candidates on the Speaker Pelosi Project page.

(Continue reading below the fold.)