The Woman Who Would Be Speaker

This summer, as Republicans were demonizing Pelosi as a liberal liability, Peterson invited her to his rural district -- where she looked comfortable eating a pork chop on a stick and vowed to direct energy money to the Midwest, instead of the Mideast.

Colleagues say Pelosi's polished Pacific Heights exterior belies an iron-fist management style. One of her first moves as leader was to take control over who gets seats on the most coveted committees -- Ways and Means, Appropriations, and Energy and Commerce.

The newspaper Roll Call said in December that Pelosi threatened to remove Rep. Edolphus Towns (N.Y.) from the Energy and Commerce Committee for siding with Republicans on a key trade bill. And despite objections from the Congressional Black Caucus and others, she demanded the removal of Rep. William J. Jefferson (La.) from the Ways and Means Committee after authorities caught him on tape accepting $100,000, allegedly in bribe money. The ousting of Jefferson startled even Republicans.

Pelosi's biggest challenge was in trying to forge a consensus on the war in Iraq, a near-impossible task given the sharp divisions among Democrats in the House and Senate and the political danger of openly challenging Bush on the war. She had been highly critical of Gephardt's support for the war in the fall of 2002 and helped line up 126 Democratic votes against the resolution authorizing an invasion of Iraq.

But as the new minority leader, Pelosi knew she could not impose her views on her caucus and instead initially took the position that it was the Republicans' war, for the Republicans to fix. Privately, however, she spent months conferring with Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a decorated Vietnam War veteran and prominent voice on military matters, who had voted for the war but was now souring on it. Pelosi knew that her voice would not be as credible as Murtha's.

The two planned Murtha's surprise turnaround a year ago, when he demanded immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops. Two weeks later, Pelosi followed his lead.

Should the Democrats win in November, Pelosi said, their new majority will push for the immediate start of a phased withdrawal of troops, to be completed by the end of 2007.

At the same time, she said, the new majority would quickly move to raise the minimum wage, allow the government to negotiate directly with drug companies for lower prices for seniors, repeal corporate incentives to take jobs overseas, make college tuition tax-deductible, and implement all the recommendations of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, securing nuclear material from former Soviet states to keep it from terrorists.

Some Democrats complain that Pelosi relies on too tight a coterie of advisers, chief among them Reps. George Miller and Anna G. Eshoo of California. Others include Murtha, Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.), David R. Obey (Wis.), John M. Spratt Jr. (S.C.) and Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "The biggest complaint is that if you were not with her in the beginning you can't get in," a former leadership aide said.

Pelosi has signaled that she would not rely totally on seniority in appointing committee chairs. She has, however, told ranking members on the most powerful panels, Ways and Means, Rules, Energy and Commerce, and Appropriations, that she supports them.

And, after studiously avoiding cooperating with the Republican leadership for years, she has vowed to reach out to Republicans and be more inclusive. She said, for example, that she would allow Republicans to bring bills to the floor and have a say in conference committees. But many are skeptical.

"That would not happen," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga). "I have never seen Nancy Pelosi reach out to a Republican."