Heath Shuler (Courtesy Creative Commons)

Heath Shuler, the Blue Dog Coalition whip, said Sunday he would run against current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for Minority leader if she does not step down, even though it “is a long-shot to even come close.”

 Shuler, the 38-year-old Representative from North Carolina, would have a more symbolic run against Pelosi in an effort to move the Democrats towards the center in order to recover lost seats in the next election.

“Obviously if [Pelosi] doesn’t step aside then I’m fully aware, I’m going to press forward,” Shuler said.  “I can add and subtract pretty well.  I don’t have the numbers to be able to win, but I think it’s a proven point for moderates and the Democrat Party that we have to be a big tent.  We have to be all inclusive.  We have to invite everyone into the party.

“And I don’t like the direction in which we’re going.  So I want us to be a big tent party."

Shuler proposed a new hierarchy with the Democrats as the minority in the House--replace Pelosi, but allow Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and third spot ‘assistant leader’ Jim Clyburn remaining in their positions.

Clyburn defended both his position and Pelosi on CNN's “State of the Union” as the team that brought the Democrats “out of the wilderness…and ‘into the land of milk and honey,’” after losing the House for 12 years before 2006.

Shuler argued that Pelosi’s views are too extreme and will only push the Democrats further to the left just after the Republicans picked up at least 60 seats in the 2010 bloodbath, included 24 seats previously held by the conservative Blue Dog Democrats.

“To put Speaker Pelosi as minority leader is truly…unacceptable for our party,” said Shuler.

Pelosi was assumed to step down after the Democrats’ loss but declared her intention to run for minority leader, “driven by the urgency of creating jobs & protecting #hcr, #wsr, Social Security & Medicare” via Twitter.

Several conservative Democrats other than Shuler have publically announced their opposition to Pelosi’s bid as leader, but they only compose of about 10 percent of party members.  The remaining Democrats support Pelosi as minority leader.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result,” said Ken Spain, Communications Director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, echoing the phrase repeated by Meg Whitman in her gubernatorial race against California Governor-elect Jerry Brown.  “Of course, if House Democrats are willing to sacrifice more of their members in 2012 for the glory of Nancy Pelosi, we are happy to oblige them.”

“It’s no different than me as a quarterback,” said Shuler, the one-time starting quarterback for the Washington Redskins.  “I didn’t play very good.  So what they’d do?  They benched me.”

 Reach reporter Samantha Yerks here.

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