Word: caucuses
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...euphoric days that followed the Democrats' big win. She said the right things, and she did the right things, like quietly reshuffling her ranks to avoid a showdown between Rahm Emanuel, the campaign-committee chief who delivered her majority, and James Clyburn, a senior member of the black caucus. Even the arrival of her sixth grandchild seemed auspiciously timed to remind everyone of her motherly side. Yet before many Democrats across the country had even taken down their yard signs, Pelosi decided to step on her own coronation by turning what would otherwise have been an all-but-ignored secret...
Nancy Pelosi showed us something important about herself this week. If Tip O'Neill thought that all politics was local, Pelosi's view is that it's personal. But what may have more significance in the long run is what her caucus showed her - that, unlike the Republicans they are replacing, they will not march in lockstep at every dictate from their leaders. And if there is any good news for the Democrats from the entire episode, that...
...from black voters if Emanuel, widely credited for the party's win in the elections, defeated Clyburn, the only African American in the House leadership. By promising him a major role in the Democrat's policy-making in the new Congress, Pelosi convinced Emanuel to take the role of caucus chairman, the No. 4 job, and not run against Clyburn...
Pelosi is known for her steel; no one crosses her without paying a price for it. And she will need every bit of that toughness to manage a caucus that promises to grow more fractious. Much has been made of the relatively conservative bent of the incoming freshman class of House Democrats, many of whom were recruited to run because they fit so well in districts that have been sending Republicans to Washington for years. Once they arrive, however, they will be working under a set of committee chairs who proudly and tenaciously represent the farthest-left edges of their...
...chairman will be a good test of how Pelosi works. Her fellow Californian Jane Harman, its ranking member, wants the job, but Pelosi doesn't particularly like Harman, so speculation is that Pelosi could go to the next in line, Florida's Alcee Hastings. That would please the black caucus, but there's no small political problem in the fact that in 1989 Hastings was impeached by the (Democratic) House and removed by the (Democratic) Senate from his federal judgeship for conspiring to take a $150,000 bribe (although he had been acquitted in court). Pelosi must also deal with...