Despite her unpopularity and her advanced age, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi is vowing to cling to power as House speaker ahead of what she thinks will be a great blue wave this coming November.

According to Fox News:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is bucking calls from within her party to step down as the chamber's top Democrat, announcing Tuesday her intention to run for speaker.

Pelosi told The Boston Globe that she's "confident" Democrats will regain control of the House in November under her leadership.

"We will win.  I will run for speaker.  I feel confident about it.  And my members do, too," Pelosi said, noting she believes it's critical that women are represented in U.S. political leadership.

Ah, yes – she's a woman, so everyone will be thrilled to vote for her.

How typical of Pelosi's surreal view of things.

Republicans can call the whole thing a gift.

The woman is hideously unpopular for her far-left stances on issues, for one thing, as well as her addled, disjointed talk, probably a problem of her advanced age.  This should be a campaign point for Republicans, given that Democrats are attempting to retake the House through a series of youthful, moderate-sounding candidates, who often are dissociating themselves from the rigid, widely disliked gerontocrat.

With Pelosi in power a second time, it's unlikely she's going to be at all different from when she was there the last time, and it's notable that after that particular performance, voters threw her out and flipped the House to the Republicans.

That's because Pelosi's style in office has been one of severe muscle, a style so unyielding that any moderate who gets in isn't going to vote moderate.  He will be forced to vote lockstep with Pelosi.  This is what we saw from Pelosi as House speaker during the Obamacare debacle of 2010.  To Pelosi, there is no dissent, and there is no moderation from the party's most extreme elements.

Republicans can now remind voters that any vote for any Democrat, no matter how seemingly benign, is actually a vote for the extremism of Pelosi, given the way she rides herd and wields power.  If they can get that message across, they can neutralize the daisies and force the voters to consider the impact of their votes.

It also presents a problem for the Democrats.  They are trying to rebuild in the After Trump fiasco of their own making and know they have a problem of aging leadership.  They have struggled to get Hillary Clinton out of the picture, and some have struggled to get Obama and his people away, too.  Meanwhile, their new voices, such as that of Bernie Sanders, are very old and for that reason have limited shelf life.  Pelosi's insertion of herself into the power structure represents a triumph for the gerontocrats at the expense of the younger Democrats and deprives Democrats of new leadership, not to mention imposes infantilization of up-and-comers to their party.

Republicans have got to play this up to the hilt in the coming "blue wave" midterms.