Pelosi’s Message for Success: ‘Organization’

To grasp how Nancy Pelosi, veteran congresswoman from San Francisco, has climbed to the upper ranks on Capitol Hill, consider her connection to Susan A. Davis, neophyte congresswoman from San Diego.

In early 1999, Pelosi convinced Davis, then a state assemblywoman, to challenge a vulnerable Republican incumbent. She let Davis shadow her for a day at the Capitol. (“To help me feel comfortable running,” Davis said.)

Pelosi opened up her deep fund-raising Rolodex. (“An amazing range of contacts!” Davis exclaimed).

She sent Davis peppy notes during a long, up-and-down campaign. (“You’re doing great, keep it up!” according to Davis).

All the attention paid off. In November, the 49th Congressional District fell from Republican hands--part of a rout in California that gained Democrats five seats and helped the party almost retake the House. By all accounts, Pelosi played a crucial role in what the five House newcomers call the California Gold Rush of 2000.

But Pelosi didn’t stop on election day. She helped Davis secure a plum spot this year on the House Education and Workforce Committee, and she played an important role in shepherding a new congressional map through Sacramento last month that bolstered Democratic registration in Davis’ new district.

So when Pelosi needed support in her campaign to become House minority whip, a tough election she won Wednesday in a closed-door vote of the 215-member Democratic caucus, there was no question about how members like Davis would vote. Pelosi captured 118 votes to defeat Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, just two shy of the number she predicted she would reach and plenty more than the 108 she needed.

Pelosi’s cultivation of the San Diego congresswoman--and many others like her--is typical of how she has operated during a political career going back a quarter of a century. Back then, she was a mother of five schoolchildren in San Francisco who was helping Gov. Jerry Brown win the 1976 presidential primary in Maryland. She is a consummate political operative who leaves no detail unchecked, no contact spurned, no bridge burned.

“Organization, organization, organization,” Pelosi said Thursday in an interview. “Know your numbers. Identify your vote. Make sure it’s there. Get it out.”

It is a simple message, but one that many politicians never completely master.

When she becomes the minority whip Jan. 15, taking over the No. 2 House Democratic post from Rep. David E. Bonior of Michigan, Pelosi will be in charge of many of the party’s mundane but often critical legislative chores. Chief among them is tracking what bills the Republican majority will bring to the floor and when, and how many Democrats can be counted on to support or oppose a given piece of legislation, an amendment or a rule to govern that day’s floor proceedings.

Aside from such internal matters, Pelosi, 61, will be called on to be a new national party spokeswoman, making television appearances on major weekend talk shows, campaign swings through battleground districts in 2002 and fund-raising stops in major financial centers.

The evidence suggests that Pelosi is well-equipped for all of those roles. Initially, it will probably help her to be known as the first woman to hold the position of party whip in the House or the Senate. But milestones are reached and surpassed all the time in Washington. What will be tested in her new position, and what her fans say she has in abundance, is Pelosi’s discipline.

In the afterglow of her victory, Pelosi has been relentlessly multi-tasking. She fielded congratulatory phone calls from dozens of notables, including President Bush, former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). (On her to-do list: Call back former Vice President Al Gore.)

She also is well regarded on the GOP side of the aisle, earning respect from such Republicans as Rep. Christopher Cox of Newport Beach for her work on human rights issues. She also has worked closely with Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee.

On Thursday, Pelosi attended a memorial service at the Pentagon to mark the month that had passed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She talked with Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee, about business pending before that panel, where Pelosi is the ranking Democrat.

She spoke on the House floor in praise of legislation funding federal labor, health and education programs--a key concern of hers as a senior member of the Appropriations Committee--and conferred with Democrats about a successful effort to keep an amendment pushed by antiabortion forces off of the bill. She could be seen thanking, hugging and kissing two of her five children--Paul Jr. and Alexandra--who were in town to lend their support during her whip campaign. (Pelosi and her husband, Paul, an investment banker, have been married 38 years.)

And of course, Pelosi gave numerous interviews, many by telephone, some in her suite on the fourth floor of the Rayburn House Office Building, some while dashing around Capitol Hill to committee meetings or floor votes.

A native of Baltimore, Pelosi comes from a large Italian American, Roman Catholic family. Formative experiences in Pelosi’s long career can be glimpsed from memorabilia in her office. On one wall are pictures of her father, Thomas J. D’Alesandro, a member of the House during the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, and mayor of Baltimore from 1947 to 1959. One of Pelosi’s six brothers also served as the city’s mayor. Those Baltimore connections paid off in 1976 when Pelosi helped Brown mobilize a winning primary campaign that helped put his presidential campaign on the map.

There are photographs of Pelosi’s father in the House listening to Winston Churchill address Congress during World War II, of him speaking with Eleanor Roosevelt during a committee hearing, and of him watching proudly as his daughter was sworn in to the House in 1987 as a representative from San Francisco.

Pelosi also likes to show off a photo of herself as a teenager in a ball gown and white gloves at an event speaking with a future president, John F. Kennedy.

On top of a cabinet rests another prized photo, a reproduction of the famous image of a solitary Chinese man challenging government tanks in 1989 in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Many prominent Chinese dissidents have signed the photo for Pelosi in acknowledgment of her role as a leading congressional critic of human rights abuses in China.

Another point of pride is a pewter plate Pelosi received from Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) to thank her for serving as finance chairman in a 1986 national campaign that helped Democrats capture the Senate.

There are, of course, many other threads to the Pelosi story, notably her link to the political Burton family of San Francisco.

As she was dying, Rep. Sala Burton, the widow of the late Rep. Phil Burton--himself a power in the House--endorsed Pelosi to take over the seat the husband and wife long had held. John Burton, Phil’s brother, now is president pro tem of the California Senate and a close ally.

Pelosi beat a well-known San Francisco supervisor, Harry Britt, in a tough primary in 1987 and has not had a close contest since. Her hold on the seat is ironclad, as Pelosi routinely racks up 85% of the vote in general elections. The 8th Congressional District is one of the safest Democratic districts in the country, enabling Pelosi to do the kind of legwork that got Davis and others elected in recent years, including raising millions of dollars for Democratic candidates and causes.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who served with Pelosi in the House for five years before moving to the upper chamber of Congress, was ecstatic over the leap her former colleague made.

“Politics runs in her blood,” Boxer said, in comments echoed Thursday by such prominent California Democrats as Rep. Howard L. Berman of Mission Hills, Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg of Sherman Oaks and state party Chairman Art Torres. “She is a terrific tactician. She’s a terrific organizer. She’s tireless, tireless. And she’s just what the Democrats need right now.”

Boxer continued: “What is amazing to me is that she navigated the old boys club and broke all of those barriers there. It signals to me that the House has changed dramatically that they would be open to women in the leadership. Believe me, when I was there, there wasn’t a chance.”