as speaker because it was the first midterm elections of the barack obama presidency. the 2010 midterms when the democrats took what president obama called a shellacking, republicans won big everywhere in 2010, so in january of 2011 she had to hand over the comically guy nor mouse speakers gavel to the republicans, and in so doing, the country was soon treated to a live high stakes somewhat scientific demonstration of what it s like to try to run the house of representatives in this day and age if you don t have nancy pelosi s knack for it. here s a sample lead from beltway reporting around that time just minutes from a roll call vote pushed by house speaker john boehner, republicans stunned the house by interrupting their own debate. while speaker boehner and his lieutenants tried to pressure reluctant conservatives into backing their plan the house then went into a