In the weeks leading up to last Tuesday's Republican onslaught in the midterm elections, several articles were written speculating on the future of the now soon to be ex-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.  Would she quit as the leader of the House Dems? Might she leave Washington overall?

You rarely heard that if the Democrats did lose the house – big time, which they did – that she would actually have the temerity to stick around.  So when she announced last Friday that in fact, that's exactly what she would do, predictable criticism reigned down on her by Republicans and some of those in the punditocracy.

But more importantly is how Democrats themselves feel about her, since along with President Obama, she has received the lion's share of being out "out of touch" and "just not getting it" from her critics.

We heard those exact words expressed Sunday morning by Virginia Republican Eric Cantor, soon to be House Majority Leader, the second highest ranking position in the House behind the Speaker, who spoke about this to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday

CANTOR: Well, if Democratic members in the House elect Nancy Pelosi as their leader, it's almost as if they just didn't get the message from the voters this election.

I mean, the voters outright rejected the agenda that she's been about. And here they're going to put her back in charge. And in fact, Chris, over the last two years — in fact, almost four at this point — she has refused to even meet with Republican leadership to talk about any way forward together.

I mean this is the woman who really, I think, puts ideology first, and there have been no results for the American people. And that seems the direction they want to take again. It just doesn't make sense.

WALLACE: So what are you saying, it's a thumb in the eye to voters if she becomes the House Democratic leader?

CANTOR: Yeah, I don't think there's any question that this says to the voters, "We're not listening to you. We think we're right. We're going to continue the same path."

No question that in certain segments of the country,  such the South (and that definitely includes Florida), the words"Nancy Pelosi" is considered an epithet, and many Democrats who will be on the ballot in 2012, or at this point simply contemplating running in two years, are probably not pleased that she's doing so.

Of course, Harry Reid will still be in his job as Senate Majority Leader, having survived a tough re-election campaign.  Even though his GOP opponent Sharon Angle received millions of dollars from all over the country so the Republicans could celebrate the symbolic power of knocking out the Senate's top Democrat (like they were able to do to Tom Daschle back in 2004), he survived, and Senate Democrats still have more members than Republicans (barely, and with the 60 senator fillibuster rule in play, there is really no majority to get major legislation passed now without GOP support).  And Barack Obama obviously continues on for the next two years as well.

So why should Pelosi leave?  In part because of media expectations, and recent precedent.  In 2006, after the Democrats shocked the world and took the House, then Speaker Denny Hastert declined to run for a leadership position, but didn't announce until a year later that he would not run for re-election in 2008.  He then decided a few months later in 2007 to quit his job outright.

This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2010.