U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette predicts Nancy Pelosi’s leadership will be smart and effective. Colorado Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald expects her to be pragmatic and tenacious.
Both said the first woman to be speaker of the House of Representatives in the two-century-long history of the United States is nothing like the caricature of a wild-eyed, dangerous liberal painted by Republicans in the final desperate hours of the campaign. Far from it.
She’s a leader, they said, and Washington insiders underestimate her at their own peril.
Besides, it’s time.
“Seeing Nancy give her press conference this morning sent chills down my spine,” DeGette said Wednesday after election results indicated Democrats would gain at least 29 seats in the House, paving the way for Speaker Pelosi in January.
“I have no doubt that she’ll be able to lead,” said Fitz-Gerald, who congratulated Pelosi by phone Wednesday morning.
There’s also no doubt that she will face relentless scrutiny of her tone, her personality, her style, her hair, her diet, her clothes.
While the wardrobe of Speaker Dennis Hastert never seemed to captivate the Washington press corps despite numerous crimes of fashion, the prospect of Pelosi taking the gavel immediately inspired reporters to describe her in terms of her “lilac dress suit” (London Sunday Telegraph) and as an “Armani-clad California lawmaker” (USA Today).
USA Today also provided the breathtaking revelation that Pelosi “has a weakness for dark chocolate.” But trivializing her is risky.
DeGette said Pelosi is extraordinarily skilled in politics.
“Watching Nancy ascend to power in the House of Representatives inspires awe in people like me,” the now-six-term Democratic congresswoman from Denver said. “She’s tough. Oh yeah, she’s tough.”
DeGette is among two or three Democrats in line for the job of majority whip in the House, a situation that seems incredible after the lockdown of Democrats for years by Republican leaders in Congress.
“I’ve been in elected office for 14 years now, and I’ve never been in the majority party,” she said. “The whole concept seems a little abstract at this point.”
The concept is about to morph into an agenda, though, and DeGette’s bill to allow federal funding for stem-cell research is among those expected to be addressed first in the new Congress.
“What we are really going to strive for is an agenda that is moderate, cost-effective and do-able,” DeGette said. “We want something that all moderates – regardless of party – can get behind.”
It’s the strategy employed by Democrats in Colorado when they won control of the legislature two years ago. “Our whole approach here was pragmatism,” Fitz-Gerald said, “and I think you’re going to see the same thing out of Nancy.”
Not that it will be easy.
Plenty of House Democrats would love nothing better than to deliver payback to the Republicans who have shut them out of the legislative process for so long.
“But most of us want to legislate in a mature and responsible way,” DeGette said. “The American people are hungry for solutions to the problems with health care, the deficit, the war, and these problems beg for bipartisan cooperation.”
In Colorado, life just got a lot easier for the Democrats, Fitz-Gerald said. “It’s very exciting having a new governor who shares our visions and goals and sees a possibility for a very optimistic future for all of our children.”
First up in the 2007 legislative session likely will be expanding access to health care and higher education. The challenge is to “improve the lives of all Coloradans and to do it with the resources you’ve got.”
Fitz-Gerald said that both here and in Washington, “there’s always the thing about ‘Well, she’s a woman, can she really get things done?’ Puh-leeze.”
There’s a word for people who still think like that in 2006: losers.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
