Pelosi 'Not Nervous' About November, but Still Ticked at Robert Gibbs

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that she is "not nervous" about Democratic prospects in November, but she made clear that she is still irked about White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' remark three weeks ago that the party could lose its majority in the House.

Asked how Democrats got to the point where pundits, politicians and political professional were speculating about the possibility of a GOP takeover, Pelosi said on ABC's "This Week": "We don't see it that way. We're very proud of the agenda that we've put forth for the American people. . . . We would have had twice as many people unemployed as there are now if we had not moved forward. These actions are all controversial because we were digging our way out of a deep ditch."

She added: "We've been legislating for the past 18 months. The other side has been in campaign mode for 18 months, saying no, stopping job creation, and the rest. But our members are the best salespersons for their own districts. They've been elected there. They know their constituents."

She said that she never takes "anything for granted" but that she was "not nervous" about the outcome of the midterms.

But Pelosi did appear to be still irritated over Gibbs' statement on NBC's "Meet the Press" on July 11 in which he said, "There's no doubt there are enough seats in play that could cause Republicans to gain control."

When "This Week's" new moderator, Christiane Amanpour, asked Pelosi how she felt about the president's spokesman saying the Democratic majority was in jeopardly, Pelosi said, "With all due respect, I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about what the president's employees say about one thing or another."

She added: "You know what? I'm Speaker of the House. I have a great chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. . . . We have a solid plan of messaging and mobilizing at the grassroots level and management of our campaigns. And we have a two-to-one advantage money-wise. So we feel very confident about where we are, whether that's well known to that gentleman or not."

On "Fox News Sunday," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the mood of the country right now favored the Republicans but acknowledged that the Democrats would -- in the word offered by Fox interviewer Chris Wallace -- "spin" anything short of a House or Senate takeover as a victory for them.

"I'd love to have the election tomorrow, but obviously it's not tomorrow, and your point is well made," McConnell said. "I think one of the things we need to do is remember that there's still three months to go. If the election were today, we'd certainly have a good day, but it's a long way until November. They have a lot of money. They've outspent us for the last three cycles and I expect them to do it again. They're not going to go down easily."

Asked what message Republicans would take to voters between now and the elections, House Minority Leader John Boehner said: "I think it's pretty clear that the American people are tired of the job-killing agenda in Washington, D.C. They want the spending spree to stop. They want to make sure that taxes are not increased. And what I want Republicans to do in August is to go home and talk about the better solutions that Republicans have been offering over the last 18 months."

McConnell suggested that the way Republicans would answer charges that they have been obstructionist and the party of "no" on such issues as extending unemployment benefits and greater financial industry regulation was to make the point that the GOP is trying to block measures that would hurt the economy by increasing debt and impeding growth.

"Everything they're doing is killing jobs," McConnell said.

However, on CNN's "State of the Union," Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R-S.C.), who has come closest to adopting the GOP "maverick" role that Sen. John McCain once filled, said that while he agreed with the strategy of fighting the Democratic agenda "when it makes bad sense . . . we have to do more than say no."

"What are we for as a party?" Graham asked. "We've been in power where we had 55 senators and we had a Republican president. You can look back and say we were not . . . best stewards of government spending. I think what we need to go forward as a party is an agenda that gives us resonance with a broader group of people. What are we going to do, if we get the Congress back, on spending?"