TIME: Don't Mess with Nancy Pelosi

Don't Mess with Nancy Pelosi
The California congresswoman leads the Democrats with a fiery style that could make her the first woman Speaker of the House
By PERRY BACON JR.


(CNN)
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-California, emerges from a meeting of House Democrats 11/14/02, after her election as minority leader.

The 66-year-old San Francisco lawmaker is an aggressive, hyperpartisan liberal pol who is the Democrats' version of Tom DeLay, minus the ethical and legal problems of the former Republican House leader. To condition Democrats for this fall's midterm elections, she has employed tactics straight out of DeLay's playbook: insisting other House Democrats vote the party line on everything, avoiding compromise with Republicans at all cost and mandating that members spend much of their time raising money for colleagues in close races. And she has been effective. House Democrats have been more unified in their voting than at any other time in the past quarter-century, with members on average voting the party line 88% of the time in 2005, according to Congressional Quarterly. That cohesion enabled Democrats to hasten President Bush's slide in the polls when they blocked his plan to reform Social Security by allowing retirees to eschew guaranteed benefits in favor of private accounts. Bush's approval rating remains depressed—38% in a Time poll last week—and the Democrats are in their best position to win the House since Republicans took control of it in 1994.

If Democrats are successful in November, it will be mostly the result of Americans' increasing frustration with the Iraq war and with the perception that Bush and congressional Republicans have bungled everything from Terri Schiavo to Hurricane Katrina. But Pelosi has made sure Democrats didn't break the Republicans' fall. And if Democrats win back the 15 seats they need to form a majority, Pelosi will be richly rewarded. She would almost certainly become the first woman to be House Speaker.

That would be sweet vindication for a leader many moderate Democrats castigated as an out-of-touch liberal who would take the party perilously to the left when she became the top House Democrat in 2002. It would also mark a rapid rise for a politician who didn't run for office until she was 47. Pelosi grew up in a prominent political family in Baltimore, Md. Her father was the mayor for almost her entire childhood. After college, Pelosi and her husband Paul moved to New York City and then to San Francisco, where she became a leading Democratic fund raiser, then chairwoman of the party in California. But she waited until the youngest of her five children was a high school senior before she ran for Congress in 1987....

***

The Democrats won the Social Security battle Pelosi's way. That earned her credit with her colleagues, who have embraced her overall strategy. Throughout the past year, Pelosi has demanded that Democrats unanimously oppose g.o.p. bills. By denying the g.o.p votes from across the aisle, Democrats have forced moderate Republicans to back bills like those cutting Medicaid and other social programs that fiscally conservative Republicans have insisted on, votes for which Democrats have then attacked moderate Republicans in television ads. Pelosi has also ordered Democrats not to work on bills or even hold press conferences with Republicans whom the party is trying to defeat in November.

Meanwhile, at the cost of infuriating parts of her own, progressive base, Pelosi has made a number of pragmatic, tactical moves to better position the Democrats for November....

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1368714,00.html?cnn=yes

Like taking Impeachment off the table...When you don't want accountability you only aid the criminals...

I wish they had more like her.

A tough lady, who has kept the House Democrats in the fold, and I fervently hope, will be the next Democratic Speaker of the House, come November.

Way to go, and shame on Time for their pathetic attempt to try and smear her by repeating some unnamed "Democratic activist" (now who could that be, I wonder) who compared her to "Teresa Heinz Kerry without the accent"-- a great lady who would have made a fine First Lady and is also tough as nails!

I basically agree with her on all the issues. Not many in congress I can say that about. I love Kucinich and I don't even say that about him. I really hope she gets to be Speaker.

I've read the says "That cohesion enabled Democrats to hasten President Bush's slide in the polls when they blocked his plan to reform Social Security by allowing-"

Does that seem to imply that because Shrub didn't reform SS, his poll numbers are slipping?

His "reform" was overwhelmingly rejected by the people. Something just doesn't look right with that sentence.

saying if the Democrats hadn't been unified on it...some moderates would think it was a good idea and Bush would have gotten credit for a terrible idea.

Pelosi is not reining in the DLC Dems, a big mistake.

and the articles usually have an (unacknowledged) slant.

This whole piece is full of poisonous little bits, accusing Pelosi of being an immoderate, shrill partisan, for example.

The little example, that you caught, is actually quite typical of the writing style in the magazine ...

I'm sure if we lived in a democracy they'd view things very differently

These wasn't even a bill submitted.

This reads like more anti-progressive propaganda from slime magazine- CNN in print form.

Remind me NEVER to pick up this rag- or click on a Time link. The last thing I need is to muisinformed.

The article is "hyperpartisan" however.

(Has the term "partisan" lost it's smear potential so much that big media has to add the prefix "hyper", now?)

What is the next step? Ultrahyperpartisan?

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when the Democrats in the House have been as unified as they are now. Pelose is tough, disciplined and very effective.

If that's what the Democrats are calling "fire" these days, it's no wonder we're so screwed.

I don't want to see more red dresses and personal testimonials of cojones. I want to see IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS brought against the sitting war criminal. All else is shouting from the balcony.

I'm pro impeachment, but I understand her strategy now. The minority party doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell of getting anywhere close to impeachment proceedings. You only get one chance at impeachment, and you'd better be sure you can make it happen. Proceedings now would only cripple the Dem's, polarize the vote and give the shrub a pass. As Napoleon said, "If you threaten to take Vienna, you must take Vienna." Impeachment now would be like Eisenhower launching D-day after Pearl Harbor.

First we have to lay the groundwork, elect a majority, and then clamor for impeachment. Although, being a grass roots person I feel entitled to agitate for it now in anticipation of a majority.

1) She did her "party thing" and endorsed Lieberman as the 18-year incumbent. If you don't understand that, you don't understand politics. And then she did the right thing when Lamont won and came out in support of him, which is precisely what she is supposed to do and precisely what we would expect of her.

2) She is not anti-impeachment. That's BS. I've seen her interviews. She has said quite specifically and succinctly that the Democrats intend to do oversight with investigations and if investigations lead to impeachment, so be it. If you expect her to play into the boogyman trap set by the GOP and start screaming 'impeachment,' again, you don't understand politics.

Her positions on the ME and blind support of Israel make her a person I would not vote for. US Congress' blind support of Israeli policies and Isreali terrorism has and is costing the US far too much in the lives of our children and the wealth of the nation that could be used to help our own people. After Lebanon, I just simply cannot support anyone in Congress who supported that carnage and who intends to vote to send Israel any more weapons.