Sometimes political demonization works. Sometimes it fails.
It clearly failed in the case of Rep. Nancy Pelosi who became the boogywoman in 2006 GOP political mailers, on talk radio, and in fund raising speeches.
The rhetorical question usually was like this:”Can you just IMAGINE what it would be like if the Democrats win and San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi becomes speaker of the House?” It was raising the unthinkeable with the code words “San Francisco liberal.”
But what would that mean? (The 2006 campaign scandals clearly indicated there already was an informal “don’t ask and don’t tell” policy in Congress…) For a while Pelosi almost (almost) displaced Senator Hillary Clinton as the female Democratic politico Republicans loved to hate and you got the feeling GOP operatives were scrambling to find things to say they hated about her.
But yesterday, in a truly historical day, it moved beyond the “IMAGINE” stage into historical fact.
And the Republic somehow survived:
Rep. Nancy Pelosi became the first female speaker of the House of Representatives on Thursday, as Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress.”I accept this gavel in the spirit of partnership, not partisanship,” Pelosi said, taking the symbol of her new job from Republican minority leader John Boehner.
Cheers of the Democrats almost drowned out the clerk of the House’s announcement that Pelosi was elected speaker by 233 votes to 202 — reflecting the number of seats held by each party.
In the Senate, Harry Reid took charge as majority leader, sealing the power shift to the Democrats, who have spent most of the past dozen years in the minority.
Pelosi stressed that she wanted cooperation between Democrats and Republicans, echoing similar calls by President Bush on Wednesday as well as Boehner, who addressed the House before her.
“In this House, we may be different parties, but we serve one country,” she said.
Pelosi noted that her election marked “an historic moment for the women of America.”
“It is a moment for which we have waited over 200 years. Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights.
“But women weren’t just waiting,” she continued. “women were working. Never losing faith, we worked to redeem the promise of America, that all men and women are created equal.
“For our daughters and our granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling.
But if anyone thought that Pelosi wasn’t picking up the gavel and would be a symbolic figure, she erased that thought rather quickly. The New York Times:
But Ms. Pelosi made it quite clear earlier that her party intends to flex its newly acquired muscle, as she presided over the swearing-in of the leadership of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, headed by Representative Kendrick Meek of Florida.“The Democrats are back, and the C.B.C. is in the lead, in the lead!� Ms. Pelosi exulted. Throwing a dart at Republicans, she envisioned “a new direction that is there for all of the people, not just the privileged few,� a direction that “builds and strengthens the middle class.�
As Ms. Pelosi assumed power, her predecessor sat quietly at his desk. Representative J. Dennis Hastert, who turned 65 on Tuesday, is now just a Republican congressman from Illinois, out of the Speaker’s chair and out of the leadership.
And Pelosi also made it clear the war in Iraq is going to be subject to some oversight and Congressional demands:
The 66-year-old Democrat from San Francisco beamed with delight as she addressed her colleagues in the chamber for the first time. But she changed her tone when she spoke about President George Bush’s impending address to the nation on his new policy on Iraq.She said Americans had rejected an “open-ended obligation to a war without end”.
Ms Pelosi said: “It is the responsibility of the President to articulate a new plan for Iraq that makes it clear to the Iraqis that they must defend their own streets and their own security.
“A plan that promotes stability in the region and a plan that allows us to responsibly redeploy our troops.”
The full text of Pelosi’s speech is HERE.
And, indeed Pelosi, perhaps more than Senator Clinton, has taken women in politics in the United States to a new level. Interestingly, the U.S. is behind many other countries in giving women strong positions where they can exercise political clout equal to their male counterparts. In a host of countries — for instance, in Great Britain, Germany, Canada, India, Sri Lanka — woman have played roles higher up in their political systems than in the United States’. And they often proved to be adept practicioners of both politics — and governance.
Pelosi will face several challanges:
It’s admittedly a tall order. The New York Times’ Carl Hulse:
As they take control of the House and Senate, members of the new majority must reconcile diverse ideological factions within their ranks and make a fundamental choice. They can spend their energy trying to reverse what they see as the flaws of the Bush administration and a dozen years in which conservative philosophy dominated Congress. Or they can accept the rightward tilt of that period and grudgingly concede that big tax cuts, deregulation, restrictions on abortion and other Republican-inspired changes are now a permanent part of the legislative framework.The competing drives were on display amid the constitutional hoopla Thursday and the emotion surrounding Representative Nancy Pelosi’s election as speaker, a position filled until now by the likes of Sam Rayburn, Joseph Cannon and Nicholas Longworth — men whose names adorn nearby House office buildings…..
In a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus earlier in the day, Mrs. Pelosi made her own allusions to the competing tugs on Democrats, noting the party was rooted in its traditions but not hostage to the past. She promised a new direction “for all the people, not just the privileged few,� a reflection of the leadership’s political and policy calculation that Democrats need to champion the average guy.
But, with the exception of some well-publicized toe-stubbing immediately after the November elections (from which she recovered), Pelosi has some factors in her favor. She comes across well on television in terms of what she says and how she says it. Her political career shows that she’s politically astute.
And then there are the track records of all of those women who’ve come before her. And, no, we’re not just talking about Americans. But the women who’ve played key roles in powerful positions in politics in other countries.
With Pelosi’s ascension, America has truly entered the realities of 21st century world politics. Perhaps bit late. But better late than never…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.