The Real Pelosi

Pelosi wants to protect those 49. The best evidence for how she is executing her balancing act came in the House budget resolution that left open the possibility that health-care reform, but not a cap-and-trade plan on carbon emissions, would pass under "reconciliation" rules.

The rules, set by agreement of both houses, would allow health-care reform to get through the Senate with only a bare majority of 51 votes. But cap-and-trade would need 60 votes.

Why the different treatment of these issues? "The priority, of course, is to pass health care," Pelosi said without blinking. She still hopes it will pass with an expansive bipartisan majority, but added: "We cannot abandon the effort if we don't have 60 votes."

On the other hand, Pelosi knows that energy issues do not divide neatly along partisan lines. Regional differences, notably among coal states, oil-and-gas states and the rest of the country, often count more than party.

"There are enough Democrats who are for health-care reform," she said. "You don't know where those Democratic votes are on cap-and-trade." Her view is that unless both houses can forge a broad compromise that will get at least 60 votes in the Senate, the whole effort will die anyway.

Indeed, the difficulties on this issue were underscored yesterday when the administration said it might move more slowly in auctioning off emissions permits.

During the interview last week, Pelosi called attention to a small statue of a coal miner that she has always kept in her office. It was a gift to her father from the late Jennings Randolph, who represented West Virginia in the House and Senate.

She said she points to the statue when she discusses energy and environmental questions with her mining-state colleagues. "They need not fear what I would write as a bill, [that I would] say, 'Let's write a bill without coal,' " she said. "You can't."

Those are not the words of an ideologue. In fact, that's the one thing Nancy Pelosi isn't.

ejdionne@washpost.com