GOP making a demon of Pelosi to stir its voters

WASHINGTON – Meet the woman Republicans are casting as their new Hillary Clinton, the lady they love to hate.

Although Nancy Pelosi is a 19-year congresswoman, she’s little known by voters outside her liberal San Francisco district, even though she’s been the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives for four years. With Republicans in control of both houses of Congress and the White House, that hasn’t meant much, though.

But if Democrats win a majority of House seats on Nov. 7, Pelosi stands to become the first female speaker of the House and the second politician in the line of succession to become president.

She then would face a decision: whether to steer the Democratic Party to appease its liberal base or adopt a centrist agenda that would sit better with newly elected Democrats who unseated Republicans in conservative districts – which might put Democrats in a stronger position for the 2008 presidential election.

Suddenly Republicans are trying to make Pelosi a household name – one that embodies what many conservatives and white, male voters dislike most about the Democratic Party – in order to turn out their voters.

In debates, speeches, magazines and a few ads, on talk shows and the Internet, Republicans attack Pelosi as the face of a tax-raising, homosexual-embracing, abortion-promoting, war-fearing, criminal-coddling, government-expanding liberal party that would ruin America if it gains at least 15 seats on Election Day and takes control of the 435-member House.

Pelosi is “the pariah from central casting in some ways,” said independent pollster John Zogby, noting that she’s a woman who opposed the Iraq war from the start and represents one of the most liberal bastions in the nation.

“She’s liberal, much more liberal than Hillary (Clinton),” Zogby said. “We’re talking about base politics and what revs up that conservative base. You’re (Republicans) going after your base and saying, ‘Is this what you want?’ “

Pelosi is engaging in person, but on television she can come across as harsh and tentative. She isn’t nearly as high profile or as polarizing a figure, however, as Clinton. A Newsweek poll this month found that half of the adults surveyed had never heard of Pelosi or didn’t have an opinion about her. The other half split between favorable and unfavorable impressions.

A 66-year-old feminist and mother of five who speaks softly, wears pastel suits and extols the virtues of mother- and grandmother-hood, Pelosi’s first impression is nonthreatening.

But her allies describe her as a relentless fundraiser and strategist who’s been willing to put liberal abortion and gun-control politics on hold for the greater good of her party, and they say she can be ruthless when dealing with opponents.

Her late father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., was a five-term congressman from Maryland and a longtime mayor of Baltimore. Her brother also was that city’s mayor. Married to an investor, Pelosi is ranked as the ninth-wealthiest House member by the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group, with a fortune estimated at $14.7 million to $55 million.

She’s framed her campaign indictment of Republicans carefully, avoiding extremes. While highlighting a string of Republican corruption scandals and advocating troop redeployment from Iraq, she also has said that she wouldn’t try to impeach President Bush if she’s in charge, and that she wants to work with moderates to raise the minimum wage, expand health care and adopt alternative energy policies.

Her critics doubt that she really wants bipartisanship and predict that she’d tap some of Congress’ most liberal members to run key committees.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., last week issued a memo warning of “Nancy Pelosi’s plan to raise taxes that would squeeze small businesses and destroy job growth.”

Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., the chairman of a homeland security subcommittee, charged that Pelosi would weaken border security.

House GOP Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said a Pelosi-led House would be “just plain scary.”

But Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., a member of the moderate-conservative Blue Dog coalition of Democrats, said he looks for Pelosi to lead as “a consensus builder” who positions the party to win the 2008 presidential election.

If some Democrats in Congress try to press a liberal agenda, they’ll fail, Cardoza predicted. For one thing, Bush retains veto power. For another, even in a best-case scenario, Senate Democrats won’t have a filibuster-proof margin. Last, with 37 Blue Dogs in the House now and hopes for another dozen after Election Day, “if they (liberals) put stuff on the floor that we (Blue Dogs) don’t like, it won’t pass. Democrats are not going to control the House by more than 50 votes.”

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., one of Pelosi’s closest supporters despite their differences on social issues and defense spending, dismissed Republicans as “trying to distract from the real issues, from the war.”

Murtha, a powerful appropriator who’s planning his own campaign for majority leader if Pelosi becomes speaker, initially supported the Iraq war but changed his mind last year.

With Pelosi’s blessing, he’s used his credibility as a decorated war veteran and military supporter to lead Democrats’ call for withdrawing troops from Iraq. “

I said, ‘Let me do this myself because of my background as a hawk,’ and she kept the other Democrats away from me,” he said.

“She’s tough as nails,” Murtha said of Pelosi. “This woman understands politics. She understood what needed to be done to move toward the majority.”