Few words gladden the hearts of Republicans and strike fear into centrist Democrats as much as the ubiquitous phrase used to describe Nancy Pelosi, who was elected yesterday as the minority House leader: ”liberal Democrat from San Francisco”.
As the minority whip, Pelosi (62) was the second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives and the logical successor to Dick Gephardt, who stood down as House minority leader after the party’s dismal performance in the mid-term elections.
But her leftwing — ”liberal” in US political parlance — image gave her elevation a frisson of controversy in a contest in which she did not face serious competition.
Her original opponent, Martin Frost, a centrist from Texas, withdrew in a day, after doing his sums and realising that Pelosi had corralled a majority of the votes. A second challenger, Harold Ford Jr, a 32-year-old black congressman from Tennessee, stepped in to pick up support from the centre and right, but was defeated by 177 votes to 29.
Pelosi becomes the first woman to lead either party in the House. She will face off against the conservative Texan Tom DeLay, known as the ”hammer” for his ability to keep his fellow Republicans in line, who became the new majority leader on Wednesday.
”It is a staggering honour. There is no question about it,” she said yesterday.
But she acknowledged the grumblings by centrist Democrats by announcing that she would appoint a conservative congressman from South Carolina as a senior aide.
The problem with Pelosi for the centrists was that she opposed President George Bush on Iraq and on tax cuts. The grievance of Democrats in the US south and midwest, whose seats are closely contested, is that she enjoys one of the most supremely secure seats in Congress, and was elected with 85% of the vote.
With Democrats licking their wounds after the mid-terms, the centrist and conservative factions of the party, and particularly those from states where the Republicans now dominate, are openly fearful about being seen to be out of step with such a formidably popular president.
Pelosi has been famously outspoken in the past, calling Bush a ”jerk”. As the senior Democrat on the house intelligence committee, she repeatedly said she had seen no convincing evidence linking Iraq to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
Her election promises a return to a straightforward liberal leadership of the Democrats and represents a repudiation of the centrist strategy of Bill Clinton.
That makes her, in the words of commentator Joe Klein, ”the very sort of political anachronism the party should studiously avoid”.
Republicans celebrated yesterday, saying that Pelosi’s ascendancy would help confine the Democrats to the east and west coasts, and prevent the party from recapturing the political and geographical heartland.
However, other commentators argue that the Democrats need to reject the centrist, no-message politics espoused by Gephardt, and that Pelosi will energise the party’s traditional base of labour, pro-choice and environmentalists, and black voters.
”Her elevation has provided the only signs of Democratic life on the hill,” wrote Mary McGory in the Washington Post.
The grumblings by Democrats and political commentators, registered with Pelosi, who told CNN: ”I do think that people elected me to be a leader and not an advocate for my own point of view. Everyone in the party has their own place in the spectrum.”
The move is typical. Despite her impeccable liberal credentials — the mother of five is a regular at Gay Pride marches and has voted for late-term abortions — she is a skilled political operative who was elected to Congress in 1987.
She has a prodigious fundraising record, collecting $1m for Democratic candidates this year — the most for any member of Congress — by appealing to California’s wine industry, Hollywood, as well as labour and individual donors.
She also has a thoroughbred political pedigree. She is the daughter of the late ”Big Tommy” D’Alesandro, a three-time mayor of Baltimore who crafted a political machine so effective that it got Pelosi’s brother elected as mayor too. – Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001