Tough Nancy

The chances of the Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives next year are looking better all the time. Since Nancy Pelosi will be the Speaker of the House if that happens (she'd be the first female to hold that position), she deserves a close look.

The San Francisco Chronicle is currently running a three-part series on Pelosi which emphasizes her toughness and determination. She has excellent organizational skills, and her fund raising capacity has been second only to Tom DeLay's over the last few years.

She puts the money she raises to different uses than DeLay did, however, and has avoided the taint of corruption. When the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog group, investigated her financial dealings they found nothing that indicated any wrongdoing. "There was no sign that she enriched herself personally by her official actions," investigator Ken Boehm said. "She didn't cross over the line as far as I could tell. If she did and I could prove it, I'd still be working on it."

Pelosi rose to leadership of her party in the House because she is a born leader and a life-long party stalwart. As Marc Sandalow and Erin McCormick, authors of the Chronicle series put it in their opening piece, "Pelosi presides over the House Democrats not because of her public image but because she has unified her caucus in their opposition to President Bush, seized on GOP disharmony and led her party members to believe they can soon become the majority...She is a disciplinarian, who threatens to revoke privileges of members who buck the party line. And she knows how to manage the other 200 egos that constitute the House Democratic caucus."

The Speaker-to-be represents CA-8, which consists of about three-quarters of the city of San Francisco, excepting the southwest quadrant, known locally as the Sunset District or "the avenues." Pelosi's district is perhaps the most liberal in the country, but that has not prevented her being criticized by leftists who find her too willing to look for wiggle room on controversial issues. For example, when Democratic Representative Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania first advocated a retrenchment of American forces in Iraq, it took Pelosi a full two weeks to unambiguously endorse his position.

For her, party unity is the main objective. This was never more clear than it was on March 29 when she stood side by side with Senate minority leader Harry Reid to unveil the Democrats'"Real Security" Plan, two of whose key provisions are "eliminating Osama bin Laden" and a "responsible redeployment of U.S. forces" from Iraq in 2006.

Still, it's debatable whether Democratic control of the House, or even the entire Congress, could help to pull the country out of the morass into which it has sunk. Leftist bloggers and pundits point out accurately that Democrats have been just as complicit in the rise and institution of the war machine as Republicans. The party has not seriously challenged the dominance of the military, military contractors, and the intelligence services over the budget process, and at times Democrats (like Murtha, for example) have been among the military-industrial complex's biggest cheerleaders.

Congress's low point was when it allowed itself to be intimidated and railroaded into supporting the Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Iraq. There were few dissenting voices in the Senate, and only 133 representatives voted against it.

Nancy Pelosi was one of them.

The first two parts of the SF Chronicle series on Pelosi are here and here.