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Jonathan Karl: Pelosi vs. GOP
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nancy Pelosi, D-California, was elected House minority leader by Democrats Thursday, becoming the first woman to lead either party in Congress. Before the vote, CNN Anchor Paula Zahn talked about the House leadership election with congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl in Washington. The following is an edited transcript: PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Jonathan, where are the House Democrats in the election process? JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We expect that Nancy Pelosi will be the new leader of the Democrats in the House. This is really historic, because she will be the first woman to lead either party in the 214-year history of the U.S. Congress. Pelosi has been in this situation before. She's one of seven children; the other six, all boys. She's the daughter of the legendary former mayor of Baltimore, but she's also somebody who clearly comes from the left of her party. Nancy Pelosi voted, of course, against the president's tax cuts last year that most Democrats voted against, and she was against the leader of the party Dick Gephardt on the issue of Iraq. She even voted against welfare reform in the Clinton years, which is one of the signature achievements of the Clinton administration. She thought it went too far. And she represents San Francisco, one of the most liberal districts to be represented in the Congress. So Republicans are going to be eagerly calling her a San Francisco liberal and will try to paint her as moving her party too far to the left. There is somebody else you should look for in this election: Harold Ford Jr., a Congressman from Tennessee, is running against Pelosi, and almost certain to lose. He doesn't have the votes, but he is clearly somebody you will hear a lot from in the years ahead. He is only 32 years old. He is the only person in the Congress that is both a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the so-called "Blue Dogs," conservative Democrats in the House -- clearly somebody who is looking to step forward as an alternative to Nancy Pelosi in the leftward movement of his party. He's somebody to watch for. ZAHN: I guess we've all had our eyes on him politically since he made the keynote speech at the 2002 National Democratic Convention. You've told us a little bit about how some Republicans define Nancy Pelosi. How would you characterize her relationship with Republicans who might not view her the way you just described? KARL: Well, she's come into the job saying that the Democrats, in the wake of the election where they got trounced, got hurt badly in both the House and the Senate, need to more clearly define the issues and present a clear alternative to the president. So clearly, one thing she'll be doing is creating more of a hard line towards the Republicans, providing a clear alternative. But Nancy Pelosi, despite the fact she's one of the more liberal members in the Congress, is somebody who in the past has worked quite well with the Republicans. You remember, and you've seen her as the vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee where she worked side-by-side with Republicans and had a great working relationship with Representative Porter Goss, a very conservative Republican from the state of Florida. So she is somebody who is not necessarily going to be bringing her liberal zeal to her role as a leader. She wants to lead her party, lead it effectively, and she's shown that she has good political instincts and is somebody who stands up ideologically. So it's not necessarily true that she's going to be butting heads all the time with the Republicans. She's going to work with them sometime as well. ZAHN: How do you think the White House views her? KARL: They're excited about it. ZAHN: Yes, I bet they are. The perfect whipping child, right? KARL: Yes, There's going to be a San Francisco liberal running the Democrats. You are going to hear that over and over again. And by the way, they also love the fact that it looks like the Democrats are having their convention in 2004 in Boston. So the two cities that really kind of symbolize liberalism to Republicans, Boston and San Francisco, will now again be really associated with the Democrats. The White House is all for Nancy Pelosi as the leader.
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