Madam Pelosi stated that government health care is what brought her and so many others to run for Congress. Really?
A little history.
Pelosi’s Problems
The San Francisco Democrat carries baggage of money and special interests
Pelosi, however, has long been plagued by reservations about her intellectual capacities. She’s a dogged inside player whose canny climb up the pole of politics has been greased by money -- but she‘s never been known as a policy innovator and has only a slim record of legislative accomplishment. Moreover, despite an effective White House campaign to portray her as a “left-wing San Francisco Democrat,” Pelosi’s progressivism often seems more rooted in circumstance than in deep conviction.
Unlike Paul Wellstone, who had an organic connection to the issue-oriented citizen activism whence he came, Pelosi‘s career is a classic example of checkbook politics. She married money -- her husband, Paul, is a former banker who became a wealthy real estate developer -- and the Pelosi fortune makes her the richest member of California’s House delegation. Her political largesse and fund-raising skills brought her to the attention of the late Congressman Phil Burton, a powerhouse of a man who took her under his wing and guided her ascendance to chair the California Democratic Party. She lost a campaign for Democratic national chairman, but -- after serving as fund-raising chair for the Democrats‘ 1986 U.S. Senate campaign -- Pelosi was tapped by Phil Burton’s brother John to take over the family House seat which Phil‘s widow, Sala, had occupied after her husband’s death. Her opponent was San Francisco Supervisor Harry Britt, who‘d been picked by the gay community as successor to the assassinated Harvey Milk. Pelosi buried Britt in money, and ran a nasty campaign that portrayed him as a “gay socialist.” (Years later, her money-raising practices sometimes get her in trouble. Last month, she was forced to shut down one of a her two political-action committees, which had been operating illegally as a double-dipping laundry, and candidates were asked to return its contributions.)
Boy, she was packing a whole sack full of "wholesome dynamism" (and money as the handpicked candidate) you "gay socialist", you. I can feel her love for health care from the start of her elected-selected career.
At the time of her first election in 1987, San Francisco was in a deep sense of fear as AIDS and the assassination of Harvey Milk consumed the news. In one of the safest Democrat districts in the United States, Pelosi ran a machine campaign of pure mean and called her opponent a "gay socialist." I'm sure all of you can see the similarities of her campaign rhetoric and her heartfelt health care concern for everyone, (but Congress, because they have a separate, but equal health care system).
Maybe the fact that her daddy, husband, mentor and friends always threw her the money, influence and power she needed to be who she is today has made her used to spending other people's money like she is a liberal Democrat with the key to the people's money.
Anyway, it's a given that Pelosi isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but she does understand the power of payola, just as she learned as a child. It is power.
Money is the power to help your friends, hurt others and crush your enemies and that is the sharpest tool in Pelosi's shed. Now as Madam Speaker she has your money to use and she is going to use it as she sees fit even though she has no basis to even know what "fit" is, especially as it pertains to working people.
Nancy Pelosi wouldn't understand the health care needs of people if she tried. After all, one of her daddies always just took care of the bill with their private insurance company.
