Ascending to a national platform (Pelosi)

[bemildred]

You can sort of sense the writers looking around for something to criticize, but it also gives you a sense of Ms Pelosi's personality and method of command. I think it's going to be a very interesting 2 years.

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She can be gracious and ruthless. She threw an ice cream social for Rep. Jane Harman when the Venice Democrat returned to Congress after a failed 1998 bid for governor. But more recently, Pelosi signaled she would pass over Harman for leadership of the House Intelligence Committee for allegedly being too conciliatory to Republicans.

Well known for harboring grudges, Pelosi makes no apologies. "I have a reptilian approach," she once said, describing how she determined which candidates were deserving of support. "You have to be very cold-blooded in how you allocate resources."

Tuesday's election bore out Pelosi's velvet-hammer approach. She whipped together Democrats and achieved a level of party unity that had not been seen in decades, all the while traveling virtually nonstop to raise record sums of money.

LA Times