Nancy Pelosi is giving the DNC, DNCC, her colleagues, and Americans all across the country every reason why she should be the next Speaker of the House. Ever since 9/11, the Democrats have not had the political or electoral leverage to legislatively hold the White House accountable. Karl Rove used foreign policy and social issues to divide the Democrats in half, preventing the party from proposing a united alternative.
But in this year's Congressional race, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is demanding respect from her Democratic colleagues, reminding them that the only way to give voters a reason to vote Democratic in November is to remain united on Iraq, health care, gas prices and the rest of the issues that matter.
Time Magazine published an article for today about Nancy Pelosi, who will likely become the first ever female Speaker of the House if the Democrats take back majority. For the first time in 25 years, thanks to Pelosi's leadership, the Democrats are more united than ever and therefore are on the verge of pushing through alternatives to White House policy:
Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in the House, portrays herself as a polite, grandmotherly lady. She constantly discusses her five grandchildren, makes sure her office is stocked with Ghirardelli chocolates, perpetually smiles and never swears in a business in which almost everyone else does. She even has a few cute quirks she and her staff would love to tell you about: a diet consisting mostly of chocolate and chocolate ice cream, and so much energy, she rarely sleeps. Just the other night, she will tell you, she was up watching MTV after midnight.
Don't believe it for a second. Would your grandmother ever say, "If people are ripping your face off, you have to rip their face off" (Pelosi's approach to handling attacks from Republicans)? How about "If you take the knife off the table, it's not very frightening anymore" (her explanation for why she won't let voters forget George W. Bush's unpopular Social Security proposal from last year)?
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.
That's it. We need a hard-nosed leader in there who will be tough enough to stand up to the White House. For five years the Administration has been pushing around anyone with an alternative point of view. If the Democrats take back majority, she might be the Democrats best opportunity to get a progressive agenda passed for the first time since Clinton was in office.
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Other sites blogging about Nancy Pelosi: Betsy's Page, News/Activism, SF Indymedia, Tom Paine, Crooks and Liars, One Good Move.
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