Photo courtesy of The Telegraph.

Dear Commons Community,

Roland Oliphant of The Telegraph, has an article this morning entitled, “Why Nancy Pelosi is on a final mission to oust Joe Biden,” in which he analyzes the role the former Democratic Speaker of the House, is playing in trying to persuade Biden to give up their party’s presidential nomination.  It is an insightful review of the situation between the two major figures in the Democratic Party. 

Below is the article in its entirety.

Tony

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When Nancy Pelosi rang Joe Biden to warn him of dire opinion polling, suggesting he could not win the next election to Donald Trump, the president insisted he had data saying the opposite.

The 84-year-old ex-speaker did something few others would have dared: she demanded to speak to the advisers telling him so and implied they were not telling the president the truth.

“Put Donilon on the phone,” she said, referring to long-time Biden aide and strategist Mike Donilon. “Show me what polls.”

Openly challenging the president and implying that his aides have been lying to him would be bold coming from anyone. From Mrs. Pelosi, it must have been especially wounding.

Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Biden go way back.

A fellow devout Catholic (Mr. Biden used to call her “my Catholic sister”), she delivered him win after win in the House until her second term as speaker ended in 2022. Although they have clashed in the past, he has let it be known that he considered her the best House speaker ever.

And they share the same instinctive institutional political instincts and fears about what Trump could do to US democracy.

Mrs.. Pelosi was Trump’s most implacable foe during his 2016-2020 presidency.

But she also has a reputation as the Democrats’ hardest, cleverest, and most strategic thinker. And she seems to have come to the conclusion that to stop Trump this time, she must first stop Mr. Biden.

Mrs.. Pelosi has avoided calling directly for him to step down. But she is now thought to be working the phones behind the scenes to ratchet up pressure on Mr. Biden to step aside.

Her strategy appears to have three strands: first, private appeals to the president; second, when they are ignored, leaks about those conversations to the press (the appearance in the New York Times of her remarks about Mr. Donilon is a classic example), and the third strand which involves rare but decisive public remarks designed to keep the rebellion alive.

Rekindling embers of dissent

Twice since his disastrous debate performance, Mr. Biden seemed to have dowsed the embers of dissent. It is Mrs.. Pelosi who rekindled them both times.

By July 10, Mr. Biden’s vows that only the “Lord Almighty” could convince him to stand aside had quelled most public criticism from elected Democrats. They did not want to put their heads above the parapet, endangering their careers by angering the White House.

But then Mrs.. Pelosi appeared on Mr. Biden’s favourite morning show to give a very pointed message.

“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short,” she said.

That would have been scrupulously neutral if Mr. Biden had not obviously already made that decision. The flames of rebellion immediately leapt back into life.

 

The race took a shock turn on July 13 when Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania. Democrats briefed out that they believed the ensuing furore would end the campaign to oust Mr. Biden, which was running short of time in any case.

But again, Mrs. Pelosi applied herself to the cause, calling Mr. Biden shortly after to say she saw very little chance of him winning re-election.

With Mr. Biden still defiant several days later, representatives Adam Schiff of California and Jamie Raskin of Maryland, two close allies of Mrs. Pelosi, both called on Mr. Biden to quit. Mr. Schiff was described by one Democrat as Mrs. Pelosi’s “drone”.

On Thursday Barack Obama, the former president, let it be known via intermediaries that he too harbours doubts about Mr. Biden’s ability to win the election.

But the president remained defiant. When he responded on Friday that he was “looking forward” to returning to the campaign trail next week, more of Mrs. Pelosi’s allies called on him to stand down.

Every time Mr. Biden looks like he has found a moment’s peace, the pressure is upped on him again with strategic defections.

Record of getting big calls right

It should worry the president that Mrs. Pelosi has a track record of getting the big calls right.

For Republicans, she is the epitome of the Californian champagne liberal (literally: she and her husband own a vineyard in the Napa Valley that supplies grapes to several wineries). The couple live in a nice place in Presidio Heights, one of San Francisco’s most exclusive districts. She has an estimated net worth north of $100 million, making her among the richest members of Congress.

But she has proved her political nous – and reading of the electorate – time and again.

She was one of very few Democrats to oppose the invasion of Iraq.

Mrs. Pelosi long resisted calls to impeach Trump because she was not convinced that it would succeed – and that if he survived, he would emerge strengthened.

She could remember Bill Clinton emerging from his own brush with impeachment with a surge of popularity.

And Richard Nixon, she pointed out, was only forced out because once the Watergate tapes emerged, even Republicans could see he had to go. There was no similar shift of sentiment about Trump in the modern Republican party, so expecting success would be naive.

‘Most effective speaker of all time’

Her superpower as a politician has been the ability to assess support and opposition down to the last vote, and knowing what to offer representatives to pass legislation despite the narrowest of margins.

That skill was key to the House passing Mr. Obama’s flagship Affordable Care Act in March 2010 by a knife-edge 219-212 vote.

She pulled off the same trick for Mr. Biden in 2021 when she ushered through his infrastructure act despite the Democrats having just a three-seat majority. The bill eventually passed by a 228-206 margin, with the support of 16 Republicans.

Bruce Melman, a Republican lobbyist, called her “the most effective speaker of all time” after that vote.

Much of that work has outraged the alt-Right. On January 6 2021 Capitol rioters went looking for her office. Those jailed in the aftermath included a woman who had said: “We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the friggin’ brain, but we didn’t find her.”

Mrs. Pelosi withdrew from front-line politics not long after her husband was attacked in their home by a Canadian conspiracy theorist.

But she appears to be making one last effort to thwart Trump – by ensuring Mr. Biden is not the Democrat candidate on Nov 5.

While the president has spoken openly of needing to get more rest, Mrs. Pelosi is indefatigable in pursuit of her goals.

“People get tired,” she has said of the art of negotiation. “You can’t get tired. You can never get tired.”

It is now Mr. Biden on the receiving end of that doggedness.