DENVER—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged Monday that Democrats still are reconciling following a bitter primary fight, but said “wallowing” in it would not advance their goal of recapturing the White House.
“The nomination is decided, we have a vice president, we’re going to work together and go forward,” she said, adding that all 12 national conventions she has attended have been marked by contentiousness.
“But to stay wallowing in all of this is not productive,” Pelosi said at a news conference. “So we can talk about this forever, or we can talk about how we’re going to take our message to the American people, to women all across America, to see the distinctions” between Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain.
Pelosi predicted Democrats will unite behind Obama by the end of the Democratic National Convention this week.
“Democrats will leave this Denver convention unified, organized and stronger than ever to take America in a new direction with Barack Obama and Joe Biden as president and vice president,” Pelosi said in her convention speech Monday night.
Striking a theme she hoped would resonate with the often-fractious party, Pelosi said a John McCain White House would simply be an extension of President Bush’s.
“Republicans say that John McCain has experience. We say, John McCain has the experience of being wrong,” she said.
Asked by reporters about female voters’ comfort level with Obama, Pelosi said women show a strong preference for Obama in public opinion polls. A “gender gap” in Obama’s favor had emerged “even before the convention, and even before the complete reconciliation that we need,” she said.
Pelosi, who is chairwoman of the convention by virtue of her post as House speaker, brushed off a question about that reconciliation effort.
What matters is Americans’ unease about the economy and such issues as privacy rights, Pelosi said. She picked up the same theme in a speech to hundreds of California delegates, saying the party owed Americans “more than to get subsumed in process.”
Pelosi chastised journalists for fixating on conflicts between Obama and Clinton supporters.
“You know what? This is like a yesterday room,” she told the reporters. “We are going into the future. What did I walk into, a time capsule?”
