WASHINGTON — Hers was the face on the grainy negative TV ads that helped defeat scores of Democrats. His agenda, re-election chances and legacy are on the line.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, chosen after a messy family feud among Democrats to remain as their leader in the new Congress, and President Barack Obama share a keen interest in repairing their injured party after this month’s staggering losses. But Pelosi’s mandate is diverging from the president’s at a critical time, with potentially damaging consequences for Obama’s ability to cut deals with Republicans in the new Congress.
Pelosi will lead Democrats “in pulling on the president’s shirttails to make sure that he doesn’t move from center right to far right,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., a co-chair of the liberal Progressive Caucus in the House. “We think if he’d done less compromising in the last two years, there’s a good chance we’d have had a jobs bill that would have created real jobs, and then we wouldn’t even be worrying about having lost elections.”
Behind Democrats’ decision to keep Pelosi as their leader after historic losses lies intense concern among liberals who dominate the party’s ranks on Capitol Hill: They fear Obama will go too far in accommodating the GOP in the new era of divided government.
Pelosi “can provide that balance with the White House,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md. House Democrats “want to make sure that they’ve got somebody at the table with the president, looking him eye to eye and saying basically, ‘You’ve got some people who have been very, very loyal to you — not just progressives but moderates, too — and they truly believe that that’s not the right thing to do.’ “
The president won’t be in a position during the next two years to work exclusively with either Democrats or Republicans, his aides argue. His challenge will be determining what concessions he needs from the GOP to forge a good compromise.
