Nancy Pelosi not the best role model for Biden and inter-generational change
When America’s Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said that “time is running short” for Joe Biden to reconsider his decision to run for a second presidential term, there were six crucial words she might have added: “Get on with it. I did”.
I’m glad she didn’t because Ms Pelosi is not much of a model for gracious and timely retirement.
She did stand down from her two-decades long leadership of the House Democrats in November 2022, aged 82. And her announcement did contain all the necessary keywords that signal inter-generational baton-passing.
She said: “With great confidence in our caucus, I will not seek reelection to Democratic leadership in the next Congress. For me the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect. I’m grateful that so many are ready and willing to shoulder this awesome responsibility”.
Note the heavy emphasis on “the new generation” and the “many” who are “ready and willing” to lead.
That speech, delivered in the House of Representatives, might be seen as the ideal template for any oldie-goldie on the point of passing on the torch. And it is. However, the person who delivered it may not be a particularly good role model for any older person standing aside from a prominent position.
That’s because Ms Pelosi always seemed enormously reluctant to give up the role. There was good reason for her — and many others — to regret her abdication of the gavel. She had made history as America’s first female speaker and was instrumental in the passage of some of the country’s most consequential legislative measures in the Obama and Biden administrations.
But at 82, Ms Pelosi was already seen as way too old to stay on as speaker, that too leading a party seeking to appeal to young people.
For some years before her abdication, there was growing impatience among Democrats that Ms Pelosi was going on and on and on…as speaker. They remained loyally silent but nonetheless impatient.
In response to the murmurs, the media often asked Ms Pelosi’s longtime spokesperson Drew Hammill about her future. To which would come the reply: The Speaker “is not on a shift, but on a mission”.
Then came a violent assault on Ms Pelosi’s husband, Paul, at their San Francisco home with the attacker clearly on a hunt for the Speaker and only unwittingly grievously injuring her spouse. Within three weeks of the attack, Ms Pelosi announced her intention to retire from the speakership.
But not the House. Within a year, she would announce her intention to seek re-election from the San Francisco district that first sent her to Congress in 1987. Her decision to seek a 19th term in office caused consternation and came as the US reflected on the gerontocracy that increasingly seemed reluctant to relinquish the privilege of being in power.
Originally published at www.rashmee.com
