Nancy Pelosi is incredibly underrated

[DonViejo]

By Dana Houle February 9 at 8:37 AM

Dana Houle has served as a congressional chief of staff and has managed legislative, congressional and statewide campaigns.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke on the House floor for eight hours Wednesday, giving the longest speech in that chamber in at least a century. She did so to pressure Speaker Paul D. Ryan to permit a vote on protecting the roughly 700,000 undocumented “dreamers.” Republicans expressed delight that eyes were on the polarizing Pelosi, but her marathon speech served to energize activists while highlighting that House Republicans will not commit to a vote. Despite having little leverage, she scored a tactical success.

It’s not just Republicans who discount Pelosi’s talents. Some Democrats are unsatisfied with her leadership: They accuse her of being unable to deliver on liberal Democrats’ top priorities, hurting the party’s brand and blocking the way for younger members. But Pelosi is one of the most underrated American politicians of the past half-century. Her media and activist critics judge her competence and leadership almost entirely based on her performance in front of a microphone. Pelosi has never tried, as Ryan did, to seduce the press, and what she says in public is occasionally convoluted. Her strength is in what she does away from the microphones.

Growing up in a political family, Pelosi learned to balance competing demands, get people enough of what they needed for them to feel satisfied, to keep track of who crossed you, who helped you, and whom to call on to return favors. And she learned to listen and ensure that people know they are heard. Pelosi draws on this experience while serving both her constituencies: San Franciscans, and the Democratic members of Congress she has led since 2003.

Pelosi is a master vote counter — and more than most 20th-century congressional leaders, she has to be. Majorities are narrower, and to pass partisan legislation, or keep a unified opposition, leaders cannot afford to have many members voting against their caucus. When Democrats have been in the minority, she has kept her representatives in check, even as Ryan and his predecessors have had to pull bills from the House floor because they got the whip count wrong.

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