Pelosi taunts GOP 2012 prospects: "Republicans don't have a bench. They don't even have a team"

WASHINGTON—House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has nothing but taunting disdain for the string of Republicans running for president in 2012 and is confident President Obama will win another term.

“This election, the President is going to win the election. Republicans don’t have a bench. They don’t even have a team. So I think the President is clearly going to win the election,” Pelosi said.

GOP former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who has been running for months, took a step closer to making it “official” on Monday when he said he would be filing papers to create a presidential exploratory committee.

The FEC filing–you can see it here–shows that Pawlenty actually signed the papers creating the Pawlenty for President Exploratory Committee on March 18.

Pelosi, in Italy today–she is on a congressional trip to Italy and Afghanistan and ok after visiting a hospital in Rome because she was not feeling well after her Afghanistan swing—made her disparaging comments during a session with print columnists last Wednesday in her Capitol office.

While away, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out over Pelosi’s signature a fund-raising appeal–the quarter ends March 31— with this pitch: “I’ve had enough of the Republicans’ extremist anti-jobs agenda and I think you have too.”