The common approach is to look to House “leaders” as how they will play broadly in the country, whether they have the ability to excite the mass middle of the public. Yet we know that the identity of the number 2 Democrat in the leadership will have no bearing whatsoever on the fate of the House in 2012 and beyond. The leadership position is a legislative one, particularly the position of the Minority Whip, whose job mainly entails keeping the caucus unified on important votes.

Could Nancy Pelosi’s decision to return as Minority Leader of the Democratic caucus end up squeezing Steny Hoyer out of the leadership entirely?

The Alliance for Retired Americans have placed ads in six key districts across the country, attacking what they describe as Republican plans to raise the retirement age for Social Security benefits. There’s a residual benefit to this as well – it’s a warning shot against Democrats who would like to do the same.

Some House Democrats have tried to use John Boehner’s comments about raising the retirement age against Republicans in the fall elections, but that becomes impossible to do when Steny Hoyer keeps going out and undermining the effort by mimicking Boehner.

Raising the retirement age to 70 would amount to a 20% benefit cut, which would push 1.5 million senior citizens into poverty.

Increasing the payroll tax cap to capture the 90% of salary which was the historical benchmark would cover close to half of the long-term Social Security funding issues, which are relatively minor compared to all other federal spending. Eliminating the payroll tax cap would eliminate that long-term issue entirely and allow for a modest increase in benefits. The choice to raise the retirement age is a choice to essentially give richer Americans a large tax cut. And that’s the choice Steny Hoyer, James Clyburn and arguably Nancy Pelosi are making. Raising the retirement age is a benefit cut over the lifetime of the program, and it breaks the promise of Social Security.

Nancy Pelosi tricked her own caucus into voting for a bunch of crap they did not know about, and now she’s running some bullshit campaign to blame the Republicans for wanting to do the very thing her own deception made possible: cut Social Security benefits.

Alice Rivlin is the chief wonk appointed by President Obama to the debt commission, and has long supported cutting Social Security benefits as a way to address the country’s financial woes.

Alex Lawson caught up with Rivlin and asked her about her plans right after his famous interview with Alan Simpson when the commission met two weeks ago, and she didn’t want to talk about it.

But it appears Rivlin’s ideas are gaining important support.

James Clyburn is a senior member of the Democratic leadership in the House. He has been meeting with the Debt Commission. He’s close to the White House, and he very much knows what everyone is planning and discussing. The fact that he is on board with Social Security benefit cuts (no matter what he wants to call it) should be of concern to everyone who cares about the future of the program.

Bob Schieffer is sitting on a scoop he needs to share with the world, unless his rules for ‘off-the-record’ are the same as the late Tim Russert: everything is always off-the-record unless the newsmaker specifically grants ‘permission to use.’