‘If I weren’t effective, I wouldn’t be a target.’ Pelosi gives candid TIME interview
When California Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi spoke with TIME’s Molly Ball, the former Speaker of the House was candid about the withering criticism she receives from both the political right and left.
“If I weren’t effective, I wouldn’t be a target,” she said, according to TIME’s cover story.
Though Pelosi has served in Congress since 1987 and made history in 2006 when she became the first, and so far only, female speaker, the September cover marks her first appearance on TIME’s cover. Pelosi noted her omission in a 2014 press conference, as Bustle reports.
“Isn’t that a curiosity? That the Republicans win, (John) Boehner’s on TIME magazine. Mitch McConnell wins, he’s on the cover of TIME magazine. Isn’t there a pattern here?” she said, according to Bustle, which referenced a previous CNN report.
Pelosi’s historic cover story comes as an equally historic number of female candidates seek elected office at all levels of government across the country.
More than 36,000 women nationwide have expressed an interest in running for office, according to an April statement from progressive, pro-choice group Emily’s List.
“Since Donald Trump’s election, American women have poured into the streets, signed up to run for office in record numbers and surged in the polls. Many of them look a lot like Pelosi once did,” Ball wrote in her TIME article. “They are brainy, liberal and comfortably situated moms who have looked at the political system with the exasperation of a person who has seen her husband get the laundry wrong and realized that she’s going to have to do it herself.”
Many political observers and journalists, including CNN’s Brooke Baldwin, have referred to 2018 as “The Year of the Woman.”
“So far, 61 women have run for governor in 2018, nearly doubling the record of female candidates set in 1994. ... Women have also set a new record in the race for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, with a total of 185 women — Democrats and Republicans combined — landing a major-party nomination to run,” Baldwin reported.
But in her interview with TIME, Pelosi said there were many more women who chose not to seek elected office because of the abuse that comes with it.
“I say, ‘Forget what they’re doing to me, because you won’t be that much of a target. But you will be a target, because this is about power. And if you look like you’re making headway they will come after you. And it won’t be a pretty sight,” Pelosi said, according to TIME.
An example of that might be New York City’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose surprise primary win against Pelosi ally Rep. Joe Crowley drew both thunderous applause from the left and intense criticism from the right.
For her part, Ocasio-Cortez campaigned against the establishment Pelosi represents, a fact Pelosi said she doesn’t resent.
“I’m OK. Just win, baby,” she said, according to CNN. “I think many of them are saying we need ... new leadership, yeah. I don’t take offense at that.”
And while it’s uncertain whether Pelosi will once again hold the speaker’s gavel if the Democrats retake the house, it’s becoming increasingly likely that it will be a Democrat. Political prognosticator FiveThirtyEight gave Democrats a 77 percent chance of taking the House as of Thursday, with election day just two months away.
As Ball wrote in her TIME article on Pelosi, “If Democrats regain congressional power in November, as most experts expect, it will be by riding a tidal wave of female rage. But rather than tout their female leader – the first woman Speaker in history, and the odds-on favorite to reclaim the title–many Democratic politicians, both male and female, are running in the opposite direction. In this season of female political empowerment, Pelosi’s power still rankles.”
This story was originally published September 6, 2018 at 5:19 PM with the headline "‘If I weren’t effective, I wouldn’t be a target.’ Pelosi gives candid TIME interview."