With Democrats Divided on War, Pelosi Faces First Test
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
WASHINGTON, March 31 — On the morning after the American bombs began dropping on Baghdad, Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, met her lieutenants for a strategy session in the Capitol. Ordinarily composed, she confessed to feeling off kilter.
"I am devastated," Ms. Pelosi recalls saying, "by the fact that we are going to war."The issue at hand was a ticklish one: how to support the troops without heaping praise on President Bush. Moderates wanted a quick resolution backing the military and the president, but some liberals balked. Ms. Pelosi, who represents San Francisco — a city described by a local newspaper as "the most vocally antiwar district in the nation" — was caught in the middle.
For the 63-year-old Ms. Pelosi, who took over leadership of the House Democrats in January, the politics of the war are especially delicate. In her quest to regain Democratic control of the House, she has the difficult task of bringing together a fractured party when Republicans run Congress and the White House. With Democrats sharply divided over foreign policy, the conflict in Iraq is providing the first real test of her leadership.
"Her challenge," said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the assistant Democratic leader, who is at odds with Ms. Pelosi over the war, "is to project her values and represent her constituents while at the same time leading a diverse caucus, particularly with respect to the war."
That challenge was especially evident in the debate over the resolution supporting the troops. While the Senate voted unanimously in favor of such a measure, Ms. Pelosi could not achieve that kind of consensus in the House. Eleven Democrats voted against and 21 voted present — to protest language praising Mr. Bush as commander in chief and tying the war in Iraq to the war on terrorism.
The vote came in the wee hours of the morning — long after most reporters' deadlines had passed — and only then after Ms. Pelosi spent hours engaging in a kind of shuttle diplomacy between House Republicans, whom she urged unsuccessfully to soften their language, and liberal Democrats, who feared that a vote in favor implied tacit approval of the war. Ms. Pelosi tried to persuade them otherwise, even as she told them they were free to go their own way.
"In the end," said Representative Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat who voted present, "everyone was really satisfied with the process."
Well, not everyone. Representative Martin Frost of Texas, who briefly challenged Ms. Pelosi for the leader's job last year, sent her a letter while the negotiating was still under way, urging that a resolution be passed promptly.
"I respect the fact that some people were opposed to this; we all understand that," Mr. Frost said in an interview. "But once the battle starts, then you have to put those issues aside."
As the the first woman to lead a party in Congress, Ms. Pelosi, elegant and energetic, has the kind of star quality that many say makes them again excited to be Democrats. Young women come to the Capitol to have their picture taken in front of her office. Donations to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have increased by 30 percent, officials there say, since her signature began appearing on the direct mail.
On domestic matters, Ms. Pelosi gets generally high marks from colleagues. She beat the White House to the punch by unveiling a Democratic economic stimulus plan a day before the president. The Democratic alternative to the Republican budget failed by three votes; last year, there was no Democratic alternative.
But some moderates complain that Ms. Pelosi has surrounded herself with a "California kitchen cabinet" that will push the party to the left, a complaint that has become heightened now that she has emerged as a leading Democratic opponent of the war.
"It's not helpful," Representative Charles W. Stenholm of Texas, a leader of the Blue Dog coalition, a moderate group, said, referring to Ms. Pelosi's stance on Iraq.
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