A distinctive and effective legislative career was established by a deathbed endorsement and the fight against a DSA insurgent. This is the real story of the making of Nancy Pelosi.
The Democratic Party's policy to winning elections is grounded in choices taken by party leaders in the immediate wake of Ronald Reagan's election to the presidency in 1980. That year saw not only Jimmy Carter's surprising defeat, but also the demise of a generation of liberal lions in the Senate. A net loss of 12 Democratic senators, several of whom had been liberal heroes for decades, turned the chamber to Republicans.
It is difficult to exaggerate how politically traumatic that election was for Democrats. It was only two years after the advent of the New Right, the class of '78 right-wingers headed by firebrands like Gingrich, and it seemed like the nation was rejecting everything the party advocated for, which was — what, precisely?
Furthermore, Democrats hadn’t merely been abandoned for a...