President Joe Biden’s stunning announcement today to not seek re-election vaulted California’s two most prominent female politicians into the national spotlight: Vice President Kamala Harris and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Biden announced he would not seek re-election in a letter released at 10:46 am PST, that it was in "the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down."
The President is stepping aside after intense pressure from fellow Democrats. He subsequently endorsed the vice president to replace him.
When the dam of discontented Democrats calling upon Biden to suspend his flagging presidential campaign finally broke last week, Pelosi was standing at the floodgates.
She stepped down from being speaker of the House in 2022. Technically, that makes Pelosi a mere congressional backbencher from San Francisco, just one member, well into her 80s, among 212 other Democrats in the House of Representatives.
That Pelosi played such a pivotal role, mostly out of the spotlight, in convincing, badgering and pressuring Biden to end his campaign — a decision he announced in a letter this afternoon — may surprise some.
Longtime allies and observers of the former House speaker say it shouldn’t. This, they say, is who Pelosi has always been.
“She is very much a behind-the scenes vote-counting tactician. That’s what she’s good at. She knows how to win,” said Marc Sandalow, the former Washington bureau chief for the San Francisco Chronicle whose Pelosi biography “Madam Speaker” debuted shortly after she was elected to lead the House in 2006.
Pelosi was early to publicly voice concerns about the viability of Biden’s campaign after a disastrous late June debate performance. When Biden attempted to slam the door shut on that discussion, it was Pelosi who subtly, but very publicly, nudged the door back open. When vulnerable congressional Democrats began fretting that a flagging Biden would drag them down come November, Pelosi reportedly offered to be a sounding board and repository of their complaints. When Rep. Adam Schiff came out last week as the most high-profile Democrat yet to call on Biden to exit for the sake of the party and country, many saw in it the handiwork — or at least, the tacit approval — of Pelosi, Schiff’s mentor and political benefactor. And when it came time to deliver the unwelcome pitch and tell Biden that his hopes for reelection were faint, it was Pelosi who reportedly gave him a dispassionate analysis of the polls, even as she remained evasive in her public statements.
For a storied political strategist, this may be the last play in a career of gambits. In triggering a risky and entirely unprecedented electoral reset for the Democratic Party so close to a presidential election that many voters believe is pivotal for the future of American democracy, it also may be her most consequential.
Sandalow is now a faculty member at the University of California Washington Center and stressed that he has no specific knowledge of Pelosi’s activities over the last month. But he sees a familiar character in the speaker emerita working the phones and guiding Biden to the exit based on an unsentimental reading of the electoral environment.
“By all accounts, she has great affection for Joe Biden,” said Sandalow. “But for her, it’s all about winning.”
“Cold-blooded,” or some synonym of the term, comes up a lot when discussing Pelosi’s political reputation. It’s usually meant as a compliment. It’s a term that Pelosi has proudly applied to herself. That, or a synonym.
“I’m more reptilian,” she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper last year, describing the 2022 midterms. “Cold-blooded. To win the election.”
For Pelosi, any consideration of ideology is always tempered by electability. That’s sharply at odds with the caricature that Republicans and conservative media constructed around her during her years as speaker: the embodiment of San Francisco’s lefty politics and out-of-touch elitism. Pelosi’s personal views do tend to run progressive, but her leadership was never rooted in her policy preferences, said John Lawrence, her former chief of staff who now also works at the UC Washington Center.
“People have this mistaken notion of her as some sort of a zealous ideological warrior,” he said. “Her power, her strength, her reputation comes from the fact that she has a cold-blooded way of analyzing the facts, of taking her personal ideology or her personal aspirations out of the equation, and making decisions based on what is feasible.”
Many who know Pelosi’s life story attribute that to her upbringing.
Her father, Tommy D’Alesandro Jr., was a state legislator turned congressman turned Baltimore mayor — a committed New Deal liberal. Growing up in the city’s Little Italy, Pelosi’s childhood home also served as a community meeting place, campaign headquarters and constituent services center. When her older brother was elected mayor of Baltimore, few were surprised.
But coming of age as a woman in the 1960s, Pelosi’s political career was much less of a sure thing. All the more so when she married Paul Pelosi, losing her politically prized last name, and then moved with him to San Francisco, a town where “D’Alesandro” didn’t open many doors anyway.
From her perch in the city’s ritzy Presidio Terrace neighborhood, she still managed to start climbing the rungs of California Democratic political power — first as a fundraiser, then a city party leader, then chair of the California Democratic Party. All the while, she raised five kids.
“She had the disadvantage in some ways of being a very attractive, wealthy San Franciscan,” said Lawrence, which some in the city’s male-dominated political class took to mean that she was a lightweight. “I don’t think that lasted very long,” he said.
Nothing about Pelosi suggested that she would be a strong campaigner of the handshaking, baby-kissing variety. She regularly described herself as shy. Her gender remained a liability. But when Rep. Sala Burton, the wife of the late Rep. Phillip Burton, lay on her deathbed, it was “Nancy” she named as her hoped-for successor.
The Burton political machine that had dominated local politics for 24 years. Reporter John Jacobs described the made-for-TV-movie scene in his Phillip Burton biography, “A Rage for Justice”:
An independently wealthy resident of Pacific Heights who was at home in some circles where it was impolite to mention Phillip’s name, Pelosi seemed an odd choice. But this daughter of one congressman from Baltimore and sister of another was a partisan, liberal Democrat to her core.
From her sickbed, Sala questioned Pelosi closely on whether she was truly interested in the job. She would be 2,500 miles from her husband and five children; the hours would be long and grueling. Was Nancy Pelosi fully committed to serve? She looked at the dying woman and said, “I expect you to get well. If you do not, I would be honored to succeed you.”
John Burton, the last member of the Burton dynasty, saw another reason why Pelosi would be a smart pick. She was, in his words, “operational,” someone who could get things done (the notoriously profane Burton would not have used the word “things.”)
With him running her campaign, Pelosi won her first seat in 1987, her first and only close election. In the primary, she narrowly edged out Harry Britt, a socialist and political successor to Harvey Milk, who had the backing of organized labor, environmental activists and much of the gay community. But Pelosi had the San Francisco machine on her side, including then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. The Los Angeles Times reported that Pelosi spent more than her 13 opponents combined. Her role as political insider had its perks once she arrived in D.C. too. She already knew roughly half of the members of the Democratic delegation by name. Many had been at her home for fundraisers.
She would go on to become the first and only female House speaker and shepherd through landmark legislation, including the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare. Along the way, she nurtured the political careers of younger Democrats. Among them are two Californians who’ve been prominently mentioned as potential Biden replacements: Vice President Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom — both of whom remained publicly loyal to Biden until the bitter end.
This month, as Pelosi worked with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and her successor, minority leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries cajoled Biden to close out his campaign, her personal and political connections to the rest of the House Democratic caucus were the source of her credibility and power, he said.
“She’s very much in the tradition of the smoke-filled backroom politician,” Sandalow said — minus the smoke. “There are still scores of House Democrats who owe their success to her…So the idea that she has enormous influence shouldn’t surprise anybody.”
I believe what should be the subject is that what and who are behind the scenes with President Biden for so long are likely to continue behind the scenes to be really in charge, still, with Harris.
So, Biden resigned as President?
Harris got sworn in, when?
Why are these all these supposedly smart people applauding a coup?
Who wrote Biden’s tweets today?
Who’s currently running the country? Whoever it is, they are the real threat to our democracy. It’s astounding Democratic partisans willfully cannot see it.
SJ KULAK, Biden hasn’t resigned, just has said he won’t run again.
It’s certainly a possibility given his mental health in particular that he could resign before the elections and make Harris President by default, meaning it’s something else she has received as a favor from others, not really earned. If you are cynical (i.e., healthy), as with DON GAGLIARDI, you may suspect it might be arranged should it be deemed useful to manipulate Dem voter and independent-swing voter sentiment to make them more likely to vote for her and her VP, not for Trump and Vance.
The “beauty” of Harris winning later or even if given the Presidency now is that those handlers and string-pullers behind the scenes already have plenty of experience with Biden and needn’t change what they’re doing with another figurehead, this time truly from the start, in Harris. The question then arises if the same people will continue indefinitely or some leave with Biden and others take their place, including the gang with the Clintons that have endorsed her.
Kamala rode the bus to school and now has her learner’s permit. So after a few months of training she can pass the road test and get a driver’s license on her birthday! Our little girl is growing up.
Voluntary and informed consent— it’s a concept Democrats and the media find foreign, both with regard to experimental jabs and elected leaders foregoing re-election.
Biden didn’t send those tweets dropping out of the race and endorsing Kamala Harris, and as of 7:30 am PDT Monday morning there is no proof he even has the cognitive power to know about them, or is even still alive. He hasn’t been seen at all since last week.
This would be elder abuse in any other context involving important life decisions. In this context it’s a coup. Yet our local political elite cheers, and our local media averts its eyes.
Who is running the country right now?
Mr Suckered, I assumed you would see the sarcasm in my post.
At the end of the day, this entire month has shown it does not matter who is President. Biden has been a shell for at least a few years. If one were honest, Trump was barely in charge; either through obstruction or by who he trusted, Trump got done what he was allowed to get done. Realistically it is naive to think a multi trillion dollar budgeted a year monstrosity turns on a dime or sways with the wind of public opinion. Those dollars are going into someones pocket, and it aint the poor or the middle classes’.
Democracy as most people believe it is impossible, and regardless of your political orientation, it is just rule by elites, the oligarchy, who circulate each other out. There are warring castles within parties and between them.
What is comical is the extent our local overlords pretend they are so democratic, so welcoming, on the right side of history, and truely believe if you just give power to the people, the issues of our time would resolve themselves. When in reality, they are ruled by elites much more rigidly than the alternative party, precisely because the alternate party exists to be the opposition.
Buy land, buy physical books, pray, and pass the popcorn.
Mr GAGLIARDI
This is most certainly a coup, which is why he hasnt been seen or resigned as president. The process will play itself out in steps, designed to manage out resistence from Biden’s camp, who have a lot to lose. Deals have to be made to go along you know.
Kamala will get the nomination, Biden will resign, and she will run as an incumbent. The hope being a few percent here and a few percent there will plug thier nose and wont allow a graber of lady things to unseat the first women of color President.
This is actually the best narrative the Dems can put forth, and it may very well work. I give it two chances in three.
But as has been noted by people far smarter than I, democracy is impossible. The sad part is many in CA and the left have made Democracy thier religion, which is contradictory to democracy’s justification. That humans are rational and given the opportunity, they will make rational decisions. The majority of voters of CA and the left are in a logic loop they cant get out of.
Mr. KULAK: I’m just touchy since so many people are suckered.
There’s also the irony — while farther-left “woke” stuff even has “progressive” types concerned at times, it’s simply hilarious that they’re obsessed with race and with some extra hype with misogyny, etc,. when it was Harris chosen specifically to check multiple boxes and appeal to liberal, Dem voters, not to others.
Meanwhile: “Biden has been a shell for at least a few years.” That’s a relative saving grace of sorts, namely that a vacuous Ms. Harris has a set-off office and people willing to work for and with her (and for themselves and others) if she chooses to use it, and also makes me wonder what role a Pelosi might play, too. Some with the Biden NEC (Northeast Corridor) camp will stay, others go, but some like Pelosi can help a Harris deal with Congress better, at least, and maybe with a few other realities about DC and beyond. Pelosi can also help with Newsom’s coming sometime soon, too, of course.
Mr. KULAK, the techno-feudal, not technocratic, angle (where rule by elites points) is perversely fascinating.
Mr. GAGLIARDI, ruling the country now isn’t Dr. Jill as another Ms. Wilson, much less another Ms. Clinton. I suspect it’s an “enhanced” White House staff into which Ms. Harris can be plugged and played. (How’s that on a “Silicon Valley” site?)
Mr Suckered
The ongoing dynamics between the technocrats and technolords is an interesting one. Once the third estate revolted in the indistrial revolution and toppled both the king and the pope, the masses (lead by the vanguard/best and brightest) turned on the bourgeois, and as such birthed the rule of the managerial class. Cause someone gotta run the place until we reach the utopian end of history. They picked up the pieces and churned it along a bit, but in the end, they are just managers and have spent the manifestations of the great men’s imagination and execution; they lack the creativity and will to make anything new happen, which is why it still feels like we are in 1980, in so many ways. While useful in the project of consolidation to the technolords the technocrat/managerial class as a dominate power is coming to an end. The future, as we are seeing played out in real time, is the true age of the technolord running things, or at least sharing power with the Praetorian Guard that is the “Intelligence Community.” Schumer said it best, they have seven ways from Sunday to take you out. And the billiinaires just showed the world they can take out Biden by issuing marching orders to the Technocrats, note Clintons immediate support for Kamala.
Welcome to late stage Democracy and Collapse of the Enlightenment.
Buy land, buy physical books, pray, and pass the popcorn.
Win back Ex after breakup and make it unbreakable,..
Visit______________ [ Rob in son buc ler ]‘ ‘g ma i l…c 0 m..
Well so much for democracy by Democrats, why have a primary election at all, if the people in smoke filled rooms in Swampyton DC, are going the play Three Card Monty with the democratically chosen one. What is this four times they have traded candidates in the last 20 years?