WASHINGTON – Now Nancy Pelosi will get a second chance.

After the Senate voted Wednesday night to approve a historic $700 billion bailout of the nation's financial industry, the focus will return to the Democratic House speaker from San Francisco.

With a House vote coming as soon as Friday, Pelosi will face the toughest test of her two years as leader as she tries to persuade skeptical colleagues to approve the largest financial bailout in U.S. history.

On Monday, Pelosi came under excoriating attack from the Republican leadership, who blamed her for the House's rejection of the bailout.

House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said Pelosi "poisoned" the negotations and caused many Republicans to "go south" when she called the bailout a response to President Bush's "failed economic policies – policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything-goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system."

And in a meeting Tuesday with The Bee's editorial board, Republican Rep. Dan Lungren of Gold River, who voted for the bailout, called Pelosi's speech hurtful: "I couldn't believe what I was hearing. … Twenty-five years ago, when Tip O'Neill was the speaker, as strong and partisan as he could be, he would never have done that."

Republicans in the past year have blamed the 68-year-old Pelosi for many things, from $4-a-gallon gasoline to Congress' failure to react quickly enough to the nation's fiscal crisis.

Democrats have been busy defending their embattled leader.

"I am appalled," said Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and a leading architect of the bailout. He said House GOP leaders blamed Pelosi for their troubles because they couldn't get enough rank-and-file Republicans to back the plan.

"I think they are covering up the embarrassment of not having the votes," Frank said.

Democratic Rep. Doris Matsui of Sacramento said Pelosi's comments "reflected the widely held belief in America that the lax oversight over the last eight years has contributed to the financial crisis in which we find ourselves."

The dust-up began when Pelosi, who's serving her 11th term, took to the House floor just before the vote.

After criticizing the Bush administration for its handling of the economy, she said Democrats believe in the free market, "but left to its own devices it has created chaos."

"It is a crisis that freezes credit, causes families to lose their homes, cripples small businesses, and makes it harder to find jobs," Pelosi said. "It is a crisis that never had to happen."

Republican Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri said at least a dozen House Republicans decided not to support the bailout after hearing Pelosi's speech. He said Republicans were tired of getting the blame.

"Every time you'd turn on television or read an article about the press reports of what the other side was saying, it was all about how Republicans either were unpatriotic or were there too late or whatever," Blunt said.

Boehner said the House was on the verge of passing the bill: "I do believe that we could have gotten there … had it not been for this partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House."

Pelosi has no regrets about what she said, her spokesman said Wednesday.

"Her remarks are what she had been saying all week," said Drew Hammill, her spokesman. "Part of being able to deal with this crisis is realizing how we got here. And her speech reflected the widely held Democratic view that the Bush administration's economic policies and their failure have contributed to what we face today."

House Democratic aides noted that even some Republicans discounted the Pelosi theory. In an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday, Republican Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona said he didn't know of a single Republican who switched positions after hearing Pelosi's speech: "It was a stupid speech by her, but it didn't move any votes."

Frank said Republicans were showing a "degree of pettiness and hypersensitivity" by going after Pelosi. And he said it made no sense to suggest that Republicans would decide to punish the country "because somebody hurt their feelings."

After the bill's spectacular failure Monday, congressional leaders declined to speculate on what would happen when the House votes again.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said the House will be back in session today and that "Democrats are continuing to work around the clock in a bipartisan way" to get the bailout passed.

Call Rob Hotakainen, McClatchy Washington Bureau, (202) 383-0009. Peter Hecht of The Bee Capitol Bureau contributed to this report.