Health Care Reform Is Moment For Nancy Pelosi

WASHINGTON (March 21) -- Nancy Pelosi may speak softly, but Sunday morning she carried a big gavel – the same one used to pass Medicare in 1965 – into the Capitol where she shepherded the biggest expansion of health care in 45 years.

In making the trek to the Capitol, Pelosi walked through a throng of Tea Party protesters, rather than take the underground tunnel to avoid them. She walked hand-in-hand with Rep. John Lewis, who the day before was subject to epithets hurled by some of the same demonstrators not heard since the 1960s.

For Pelosi, it was meant not only to show solidarity for the civil rights leader, but her intention to be remembered as more than just the country's first female Speaker of the House.

"She already had a unique place in history," said Rutgers University congressional expert Ross Baker. "That established her place on the page. The question is how many pages does she get and what's the verdict."

For many, at least one additional page will be devoted to her instrumental role in getting health care across the finish line.

"To be able to do this when the conventional wisdom was it was simply undoable, and with the huge public backlash and no Republican votes, is really quite something," said Norman Ornstein, a congressional expert at the American Enterprise Institute. While the Senate must still act on a series of fixes and Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic leaders are sharing bragging rights, "Pelosi is right at the top of the list," he said.

It's certainly a sentiment shared by many of her colleagues.

"There were a lot of people who wanted to go slow, some people who wanted to stop altogether and take baby steps," said Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a member of the Democratic House leadership. "The Speaker knew that was like trying to put a BandAid on a broken leg."

The House cleared the Senate-passed legislation in a 219-212 vote. Lawmakers also passed a package of changes to the bill by a 220-211 and sent it to the Senate for final action.

Although health care reform was meant to be President Barack Obama's single biggest domestic accomplishment, in recent days the power to achieve it appeared to shift from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other. "Pelosi's Triumph?" asked Politico. To show the contrast, the site's Mike Allen reported that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was spotted jogging in Rock Creek Park at 3:15 p.m. Saturday -- right in the thick of negotiations and arm-twisting on Capitol Hill -- while Pelosi spent the day behind closed doors negotiating with and cajoling wavering Democrats.

Pelosi put her stamp on the win in the last 48 hours. First she gave the OK to drop a controversial parliamentary maneuver assailed by Republicans as an underhanded tactic to pass the legislation without forcing Democrats in swing districts to cast a vote for it. Then, Sunday afternoon, Rep. Bart Stupak agreed to an 11th-hour solution on abortion, giving Democrats the votes they needed to pass the Senate bill.

"At every juncture she's been like the fireman putting out the fire and making sure the building stands," Van Hollen said.

"If she's not the best [Speaker] to do this job, she's certainly in the top two or three in history," said House Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn.

Of course, not everyone shares this sentiment.

"Whether you look at the budgets or their cap and trade scheme and now ramming this government takeover of health care, as a leader, Speaker Pelosi is out of touch with the American people," said House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana.

But as GOP strategist Vin Weber told USA TODAY years ago, Republicans who "believe this caricature of Nancy Pelosi as a whacked-out San Francisco liberal, they're going to find out it's not true and [will] underestimate her ... She comes out of a family famous for having extraordinary practical political skills."

The daughter of a former mayor of Baltimore who also served in the House, Pelosi was raised on politics. She raised five children before going into the family business herself. Those were the years, Van Hollen said, that the future Democratic leader would learn many of the skills she brought to the health care debate. On Sunday night, her family was in the gallery looking on.

Like any attentive mother, "She has eyes on the side of her head -- she can see everything that's going on, 360-degree vision," Van Hollen said. "She can see things coming before others can."

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a fellow California Democrat, echoed other House members who say Pelosi's strength is her ability to maintain her focus. "She's never distracted from where she's trying to take the country," she said, adding that unlike other political leaders in Washington, "she's not somebody who's egotistical at all. She's never gonna say 'me, me, me.'"

Perhaps, but Republicans will pin accountability on Pelosi's designer lapels. "Short-term, she's a very effective Speaker and she knows how to use her power," said Rep. Peter King of New York. "Long-term, if the Democrats lose in November, it's her responsibility. So she may get a short-term victory, but a long-term disaster."

Tonight, though, Pelosi was savoring her victory.

And according to Van Hollen, she deserves it.

"Lots of things came together," he said, "but certainly one of them was her sheer willpower and ability to bring her caucus together and not take 'no' for an answer."

Contributing: Patricia Murphy of Politics Daily.