Nancy Pelosi Doesn't Care What You Think of Her. And She Isn't Going Anywhere

Found an old issue of TIME - Sept 2018 - and Pelosi was the cover story. Before the elections, of course, when we all realized how smart and capable she is. Here are selected paragraphs:

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Pelosi is one of the most consequential political figures of her generation. It was her creativity, stamina and willpower that drove the defining Democratic accomplishments of the past decade, from universal access to health coverage to saving the U.S. economy from collapse, from reforming Wall Street to allowing gay people to serve openly in the military. Her Republican successors’ ineptitude has thrown her skills into sharp relief. It’s not a stretch to say Pelosi is one of very few legislators in Washington who actually know what they’re doing. But few people talk about her in those terms. Instead, Pelosi is regarded as a political liability. Republicans see her as their biggest asset, and hope to motivate their voters in the midterm elections by putting her image in television ads. Meanwhile, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars she has raised for her party, nearly 60 Democratic House candidates have returned the favor by calling for new leadership.

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Then, at the height of the 2008 campaign, the economy collapsed. On the afternoon of Sept. 18, Pelosi called Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and suggested they meet with congressional leaders the next day. But Paulson said it couldn’t wait that long. That evening, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate met in Pelosi’s conference room with Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Chris Cox and White House representatives. There were just six weeks until the election, and it was clear that the bailout Bernanke and Paulson were asking for would be extremely unpopular. House Republican leader John Boehner couldn’t deliver the 100 votes he had promised. So Pelosi went back to her people and begged for more support. “She had to go to the Democratic caucus and convince them to give a $700 billion bailout to the most unpopular human beings on the face of the earth, then go home and face their constituents who were losing their homes,” says John Lawrence, Pelosi’s chief of staff at the time. The bailout passed the House with the support of 172 Democrats and 91 Republicans.

In this and other legislative jams, Pelosi’s strategy was persistence, persuasion and an encyclopedic knowledge of her caucus: what they wanted and what they feared. The night before a big vote, she and her staff would pore over the list of uncommitted members, figuring out who could be swayed and how. “Invariably, she’d get to the bottom of the list and go back to the top and start over,” says Lawrence, “which was not very appealing at 2 a.m.”.. Her unruly caucus spanned the ideological spectrum, from Blue Dog conservatives to far-left ideologues, but Pelosi never lost a major vote. “I was in those rooms when people were saying, ‘Let’s just throw in the towel,’ and she’d say, ‘Give me the names and leave me alone for a minute,'” says George Miller, a retired California Congressman.

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Trump voters, she says, need compassion, not condescension. “I don’t want to be disrespectful of any of the people who voted for the President,” she says. “I do want to make sure they understand what he is doing to them.” It may take patience, she adds. “Did you ever know anybody who was dating a jerk?” she asks. “Could you tell her? No. You have to wait until she figures it out for herself–hopefully before it’s too late–or you’ll just drive her into his arms.”

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In the meantime, Pelosi has used her scant power in Congress to considerable effect. Despite controlling all three branches of government, Republicans have proved unable to enact most of their promises, including their signature vow to repeal Obamacare. Pelosi and her Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer, have repeatedly outmaneuvered the President. In September 2017, they got Trump to agree to a spending deal that raised the debt ceiling and funded the government, drawing howls from conservatives. In March they cut another spending deal, this one so favorable to Democrats that Trump blasted it even as he signed it. No detail in that bill escaped Pelosi’s attention. At one point, to resolve an impasse over minor-league baseball salaries, she worked out a compromise with the league through her relationship with the president of the San Francisco Giants, securing the players a pay increase. The final bill lifted spending caps and boosted domestic appropriations by some $60 billion, while blocking Republican efforts at environmental, labor and banking deregulation. “We wouldn’t have been able to pass that spending package under Barack Obama,” a House Democratic staffer told me. “Republicans would have laughed us out of the room.” The real art of the deal in Washington is being practiced by Pelosi, in what ought to be the Capitol’s least powerful caucus.

More..

https://time.com/5388347/nancy-pelosi-democrats-feminism/