Liberal poised to be first woman to lead party in Congress

Already the highest ranking woman in congressional history, the liberal Nancy Pelosi is poised to scale new heights this week by replacing the outgoing Richard Gephardt as the Democratic minority leader in the House of Representatives.

Technically, Ms Pelosi, 62, still has to overcome her lone challenger, Harold Ford of Tennessee, in a secret ballot of the 205-strong Democratic House caucus on Thursday. But after the withdrawal of Martin Frost, considered her strongest rival, and Mr Frost's endorsement of Ms Pelosi, her victory is seen as a foregone conclusion.

If so, Ms Pelosi, whose district is the liberal stronghold of San Francisco, will become the first woman to lead either party in either chamber on Capitol Hill. She will bring to the task a nimble political instinct, proven powers of fundraising – and many policies that are diametrically opposed to those of the Bush administration.

She has been a staunch critic of war with Iraq, leading half the House Democrats in voting against the war-powers resolution approved by Congress last month. Unlike many of her colleagues, she also fought the massive tax-cut package, and resisted the Homeland Security bill on the grounds that it gave too much power to the executive.

Under Ms Pelosi, the charge that the Democrats have no recognisable and coherent policies of their own – on which their loss in the mid-term elections last week has been blamed – will no longer apply.

Once the Republicans had sealed their triumph, however, her words became notably less confrontational. "Perhaps there will be something we can work together on," she said of President George Bush's planned new round of tax cuts. "We should have something to say that is positive and not just oppose what the President says."

But friend and foe alike expect the Pelosi leadership to be far more sharply drawn than that of the centrist and deal-making Mr Gephardt, who is now likely to launch a run for the White House in 2004.

Republicans acknowledge that Ms Pelosi, who has the knack of smiling broadly at her opponents even as she tears into their policies, will be an articulate and attractive new face for the Democratic party.

Privately, however, they believe she is too liberal for the mood of the country, and will cost the Democrats votes among moderates and independents. Mr Ford is already warning of deep splits between the liberal and moderate wings of the party in the House, and of the risk that some moderates may simply jump ship.

But Ms Pelosi could prove a surprise. To portray her as a conventional Californian liberal tells far less than the whole story. She comes from a family steeped in old-fashioned East Coast political traditions, and the ways of machine politics.

Her father was Thomas D'Alesandro, a Maryland Congressman and mayor of Baltimore in the 1940s and 50s whose New Deal populism marked his daughter deeply. But she also imbibed his toughness and pragmatism, and the acceptance that sometimes only by striking deals with rivals could policies be pushed forward.