Barack Obama would bring a new spirit of bipartisanship to Congress and address health care, energy and economic concerns in the first 100 days of his presidency, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday morning.
Pelosi was the featured guest at Convention Conversations, a breakfast event on the roof of the Denver Athletic Club hosted by The Denver Post, Politico and Yahoo. Jim VandeHei, Politico executive editor, and Susan Greene, Post metro columnist, peppered the Democratic speaker with questions about the campaign and what an Obama presidency might look like.
“You would see a different spirit,” Pelosi said.
In the first 100 days, she said, Democrats would work to pass bills that have been stymied by Republicans, including measures that would expand the state Children’s Health Insurance Program, fund stem-cell research and implement tax credits for renewable energy.
“Science, science, science, science,” she said would be the key to boosting the economy.
Asked why Democrats haven’t been tougher on President Bush since retaking the majority in Congress, Pelosi said leaders decided to focus on accomplishing change instead of a divisive process to impeach the president.
“We decided to focus on the needs of the people,” she said.
Pelosi also took the opportunity to fire back at one of John McCain’s main criticisms of Obama: that he doesn’t have as much experience.
“When they talk about John McCain’s experience, he has the experience of being wrong,” she said.
Despite recent polls showing that Obama and McCain are in a statistical dead heat, Pelosi said she was confident the Illinois senator would win Nov. 4.
New voters, she said, will propel him to victory.
Michele Lawonn, a Denver Democratic activist, said she liked what Pelosi had to say about the party’s priorities, especially plans to improve access to quality health care.
As a supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, though, she was disappointed that Pelosi didn’t talk about what Obama needs to do to win over Clinton’s 18 million primary-election voters.
The unity that party leaders keep talking about, Lawonn said, isn’t developing.
“They need to talk to people in the trenches, not just party leadership,” Lawonn said.
