ShareThisBy MARGARET TALEV
Friday, November 10, 2006
Call it ironic, or perfectly fitting, that as she stood within reach of becoming the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi faced the ultimate dilemma of many American women: work or family?
Between updates from New York, where her pregnant daughter, Alexandra, was overdue for a Nov. 2 delivery, Pelosi, the Democrats' leader in the House, spent the final days of the campaign dashing from one rally to the next, promoting candidates whose defeats of Republican incumbents might put her over the top.
As Democrats rode an antiwar wave to take control of the House, the stakes were historic for the 66-year-old San Francisco liberal, the daughter of a former congressman and Baltimore mayor and the wife of a multimillionaire investor, who waited until her children were grown to run for office.
"It says to women everywhere that not only a glass ceiling but a marble ceiling can be broken and that anything is possible," a hoarse Pelosi said outside a Philadelphia-area campaign stop over the weekend.
But for the Roman Catholic mother of five, the idea of missing the birth of grandchild No. 6 was too guilt-inducing to contemplate. If Alexandra went into labor on election night itself, Pelosi had said with her trademark unflinching, lip-glossed smile, "I'll be at the hospital."
Alexandra's baby chose not to be born on Tuesday after all. So as the returns rolled in Tuesday night, Pelosi basked in the adoration of the hundreds of Democratic activists who chanted, "Speaker! Speaker!" just past midnight in the packed ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Hotel near the U.S. Capitol.
"Today we made history!" Pelosi beamed, blinking back tears. But she dwelled little on gender, instead pledging an ethical and open leadership style and to work in a spirit of bipartisanship.
"Mr. President, we need a new direction in Iraq," she said. "Let's work together to find a solution."
In a conciliatory gesture on a night when red states voted blue, Pelosi wore a lavender suit and a purple bead necklace.
Pelosi still is coming to terms with the import of the election. "Ten years ago, I would have never thought we would have a woman speaker, and now we do _ well, we will," she said.
"Little Nancy" learned her business as a child. Her father, Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., was one of a handful of Italian Americans in Congress, elected to five terms from 1938 to 1946.
Pelosi interned for a senator from Maryland, then her marriage to investor Paul Pelosi took her to San Francisco, where she raised their children. In 1987, she won a special election to replace her friend, Rep. Sala Burton, who'd died of colon cancer.
