There is a good profile of Nancy Pelosi in the Los Angeles Times. This is just one more signifier that the media is anticipating the first ever female speaker of the house. The profile portrays Pelosi fairly sympathetically. Of course, it is hard to do her job of relentless shmoozing, fundraising, spewing talking points, and enforcing discipline, and have it come off as endearing. But we don’t need our leader to be endearing. It a strange fact about Nancy Pelosi that she is seen as simultaneously pit-bull tough and too weak to lead one of the national parties. The LA Times summarizes this curious image here.
…Pelosi is not necessarily the public face most Democrats would have chosen to represent a party struggling to look strong in these unsettled times — a 66-year-old liberal congresswoman from war-protesting San Francisco who looks too demure to stand up for national security and isn’t great on TV.
Republican ad campaigns cast her as a caricature of liberal excess; depicted with eyes bulging and mouth agape, she looks like she’s about to pop a blood vessel or bite somebody…
…”Prior leadership did not discipline the troops in the way Nancy has,” said Vic Fazio, a former Democratic congressman from West Sacramento, now a Washington lobbyist. “And she brought a lot of new donors to the table.”
Pelosi proved herself in the backrooms and trenches of Washington, not on the Sunday morning talking-heads circuit. She tends to speak in scripted talking points — one columnist likened her delivery to “a compendium of bumper stickers.” She leans toward mind-numbing alliteration: The only three excuses for breaking from the party line are “conscience, constituents, Constitution.”
Most agree she has improved with practice and occasional guidance from media coaches to slow down and smile. She was more relaxed during a recent appearance on the “Late Show With David Letterman” and drew applause more than once with jabs such as: “Mr. President, ‘stay the course’ is not a strategy, it’s a slogan, and we need more than that.”
Unlike previous party leaders from both sides — Democrat Richard Gephardt and Republican Newt Gingrich, most notably — Pelosi isn’t running for president. Her raucous but loyal district has sent her to Washington 10 times, by margins so huge that she doesn’t campaign; she’s never needed national exposure and says she would rather spend her time promoting her party than herself.
“I could stay in Washington all the time and go on Sunday morning shows, but I don’t have time for that. I need to be traveling and raising money and be at home,” she says from the back seat of a black SUV on her way to yet another fundraiser. “At the beginning of all this 23 months ago, we were told we were a permanent minority…. I’m fighting a battle here. I’m not getting my hair done.”
In some ways she is similar to Dennis Hastert, who also lacks oratory and public relations skills, but who runs his caucus with an iron hand. Of course, Hastert’s operation hasn’t functioned since the loss of his hammer, Tom DeLay. Many Democrats are uncomfortable with the idea of Pelosi as the public face of the party and, if we win the House but not the Senate, she will certainly be that.
I don’t know if we should really be worried. If she continues her behind the scenes role and effectively delegates ‘message’ out to more skilled media pols, she may be able to be quite effective.
Here’s a sample of why I have confidence in her.
Acting on advice from marketing gurus after the 2004 presidential election, Pelosi ordered her ranks to assail the Bush privatization plan while offering nothing of their own that the Republicans could counterassault. Week after week impatient Democrats asked, “When can we propose a plan?” and week after week she intoned, “Never.”
When the Bush team visited 60 cities in 60 days to sell Medicare prescription coverage — the centerpiece of his second term — Democrats were on the ground too, with a message of higher drug costs and industry perks.
In eight months, support for Bush’s idea among seniors had dropped significantly, marking the beginning of his decline in national public opinion polls.
“We had to make them pay … for trying to do that to the American people,” she explains, displaying the bite that has made her reputation as a political pit bull.
“We ha[ve] to make them pay … for…do[ing] that to the American people” should be our mantra going forward.
Somehow it hadn’t struck me that she’d be the first female speaker. That would explain the hysteria the GOP is fanning about what an intolerable outrage it would be to see her in charge of the House — just more code for the usual rightwing hatred of women except as sex objects, servants, and baby makers. I’d been wondering why somebody who has voted far too often with Bush, a committed moderate, would be the object of such rabid attacks. Finally the simple answer: she’s a woman.
Dave, it really is a little much to describe Pelosi as a committed moderate. I know you think there is no left in this country, but she ranks as the twenty-second most progressive member of the House. In a caucus of 202, she is in the top 10% for most progressive, based on her voting record. And, since she is the minority leader, her votes are not always her own.
She has a 100% voting record on family planning and housing. No matter how you slice it, she is not a committed moderate in her personal votes. How she decides to lead the party may be more accommodating than you would like, but I have to defend her here.
Boo, I wasn’t attacking her, just saying that she’s no Conyers or Kennedy or Feingold or Boxer, so the GOP hysteria about her is unexplainable except as fear of a woman being in charge. She voted for the Patriot Act, for example, and for the Iraq budget reauthorization (though, to her great credit, not for the original Iraq war resolution), as examples of what I wouldn’t call “progressive” moves.
I don’t put much stock in these indexes of left-right voting. Some things matter much more than others. There are more issues in the political universe than abortion rights. I have no problem with her being speaker — it could be much worse, even with Dems in charge. But she does not stand out as deserving the crown as Number 1 “conservative” nightmare, even though you’d think so if you watch the GOP attack ads.
I just wanted to add here that the objection to Pelosi also happens to be she comes from ‘San Francisco’, in interviews I have seen with Reps. they use that to associate her with gays and they also have tried to tie her to the ‘man on boy'(manbia’ or something like that) group by virture of the gay pride parade which they say she was standing by a representative of that group. Also SF is seen as extreme liberal..
Yeah, it’ North American Man/Boy Love Association and it’s all over the internets that Pelosi marched with a NAMBLA leader — they are pretty repulsive IMHO but the truth is that in San Francisco’s 2001 Pride Parade she was 4 floats back from a grand old activist named Harry Hay who had protested when NAMBLA was excluded from the Los Angeles Pride Parade in 1986.
I agree that it’s both the women-haters and the San-Francisco-Homosexual haters that are behind this ravenous vilification of Pelosi.
I noticed that Blackwell of Ohio used this also against his opponent in gov. race in debates the other night asserting his opponent had member of his staff who was a child sex offender, therefore by extension he was guilty. This nambla thing is used often in the reps. rhetoric, especially in recent weeks. When you have nothing else, I guess you will use anything!!!!!
Thanks for giving me the correct initials for the group Lil.
I was there when NAMBLA was allowed in the parade and they were booed by the entire community from one end of the parade route to the other.
I would love to see her run for President!!
Wapo’s profile is quite balanced: ‘She’s a tough -minded tactician.’
just what we need
“She quickly consolidated her power, sending a strong message to those she saw as adversaries. “If someone is her enemy, she shuts them out. She closes them down,” Murtha said.
In describing her dealings with fellow Democrats, Pelosi said, “I expect a certain level of discipline when we have agreed on where we’re going.” Some members, she said, “mistake sometimes my courtesy for a lack of strength, and they ought not to do that.”
Madame Speaker.