When Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as the first Democratic House speaker in 12 years, she promised to reach across the aisle to Republicans, to be “speaker of the House — the entire House.”
But she did not look like a speaker of the whole House this week, as the financial industry bailout she helped negotiate was unexpectedly defeated. Republicans deserted in droves, Democrats were split, and Pelosi ended the floor debate before the vote with a passionate critique of Republican economic policies.
The Wall Street meltdown is the biggest issue to face Congress in decades, and it posed a daunting test of Pelosi’s leadership abilities.
The bill’s defeat was in part a tribute to political forces beyond Pelosi’s control: The mistrust between the parties has made it difficult for the House to address major problems that cry out for bipartisan solutions. Ohio Rep. John Boehner is considered a weak minority leader, and President Bush’s leverage has all but vanished.
Still, Pelosi’s handling of the issue revealed the limits of her ability to win the trust of Republicans and did little to dispel her reputation as a polarizing figure.
Her closing speech was an assault on the Bush-era economic policies that Pelosi said fueled the current financial woes. Some Republican leaders said Tuesday that her tone had cost them votes.
Brendan Daly, Pelosi’s spokesman, said she intended it as a last-ditch effort to increase support from balky liberal Democrats. Still, some congressional analysts said the onslaught may have been ill-timed and reinforced the view of her as too partisan.
After the plan failed, Pelosi blamed Republicans for not living up to an agreement — designed to give bipartisan political cover to incumbents — that each party would deliver half of its members in support.
Some critics now are asking whether Pelosi had faulty vote-counting intelligence. GOP leaders said they told Democrats in advance that they did not have a lock on their votes but did not ask them to delay the debate. Democrats believed that Republicans were lowballing the count and that the measure would pass.
Others have questioned how committed Pelosi was to passing the bill because, once it became clear that it was failing, she made only limited efforts to change minds. She asked members of the Congressional Black Caucus, a bastion of opposition to the deal, to change their votes — but did not deploy the kind of hardball tactics leaders often use to win close contests.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said that Pelosi told him: “This is an important bill to the country,” but didn’t try to push him.
“There wasn’t any arm-twisting or anything like that,” Thomp son said. He acknowledged that Pelosi can be tough but said in this case, “she wasn’t.”
