NPR All Things Considered - Transcript

National Public Radio (NPR)

SHOW: All Things Considered 9:00 AM EST NPR

November 3, 2004 Wednesday

LENGTH: 1318 words

HEADLINE: Nancy Pelosi discusses the mood of House Democrats following last night's wins by the GOP

ANCHORS: MELISSA BLOCK, ROBERT SIEGEL

BODY:

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

And I'm Robert Siegel.

Along with the president's victory, Republicans are also celebrating gains in the Senate and in the House. California's Nancy Pelosi is the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives.

Congressman Pelosi, welcome to the program.

Representative NANCY PELOSI (Democrat, California; Minority Leader): Thank you very much. My pleasure to be here.

SIEGEL: A moment ago in Julie Rovner's report, we heard Congressman Reynolds of New York, Republican, saying this was a demoralizing defeat for Democrats, personally damaging to you. How do you respond to that?

Rep. PELOSI: Well, I just got off the phone with my-a conference call with my Democratic caucus, and they're energized, ready to go and ready to take up in the issues in lame-duck session now, point out the differences between Democrats and Republicans and ready to put our legislative agenda forth in the next Congress and ready to fight the Republicans in the next election. They're anything but demoralized, and as their leader, I intend to lead them strongly as a force for good in our country.

SIEGEL: What went wrong yesterday? Why did the Democrats lose seats?

Rep. PELOSI: Well, I'm looking at the map on TV and I see a very, very red map of the country except for a fringe on the the East and West coasts and in the northern part of our country. And what we saw in our elections is that the red states really intensified. In terms of protecting our incumbents in Texas, the president's state-that became almost insurmountable, although we did win one. We won a member of Congress from President Bush's own district, and we take great pride in that. And we defeated an incumbent in Dennis Hastert's back yard in Illinois, the longest-serving Republican in Congress...

SIEGEL: Which is Phil Crane, yeah.

Rep. PELOSI: ...Phil Crane. So we had some victories around the country, one in the speaker's back yard and one in as far as the president is concerned. But I do think the intensity of the red states was such that it made it more of an uphill climb for us.

But we have set the table for the next election. We have demonstrated to the public that there is a radical right-wing agenda going on in Washington, DC, and now they're going to watch the way their members vote.

SIEGEL: Mm-hmm.

Rep. PELOSI: So they can't come home and pretend to be moderates while they're voting radical right wing in Washington, DC. We have many more races to choose from in the next election because we won't have to protect as many endangered incumbents-as many as 30 Republicans are endangered incumbents, in fact.

SIEGEL: I want to ask you about one issue, or one set of issues that it represents, and that's gay marriage. There were 11 referenda yesterday in states...

Rep. PELOSI: Yes.

SIEGEL: ...not just in red states, in Ohio, but also in Michigan and Oregon.

Rep. PELOSI: Yeah.

SIEGEL: Voters turned out in-with vast numbers banned same-sex marriage. Is that an issue, and is the cause of a kind of social parity for gays in American life-is that a cause with which the Democratic Party should, to some extent, remain allied, or do you have to get closer to the majority view of people who express that as being outside their sense of values?

Rep. PELOSI: Well, the Democrats support non-discrimination in whatever form it might take. Certainly, I think president-well, I was hoping President Kerry-Senator Kerry was clear that he is against gay marriages, that he supports civil unions, and I think that's a place where most Americans have a comfort level. But the Republicans were successful in exploiting concerns that people had on the issue of gay marriage.

SIEGEL: But some of those referenda actually also banned civil unions. They banned domestic partnerships even, people are voting against these things in some states.

Rep. PELOSI: Well, to that extent, I think that sometimes people perhaps did not realize the damage that they were doing. In fact, I even asked the president one day if his amendment to the Constitution banned civil unions, and he didn't know the answer to the question. So I wouldn't be surprised if some of the voters didn't know either.

But what happened is, is that the Republicans cannot win the vote on creation of jobs, expanding access to health care, expanding opportunity for education, protecting our environment, even protecting our country in a way that protects our civil liberties. So they have to take it to this faith-family-country issue as if they're the only faith-filled people, the only ones committed to family and the only patriotic Americans, and that's a real disservice to our country. But it is a debate where they can be successful because for 22 percent of the public said that moral issues were the-morality issues were the deciding factor in their vote, and that was the highest number, over jobs, over the econ-over terrorism, even.

So it is-you know, this is something that we're going to have to speak more clearly to the American people about as to the-again, the extent to which faith is not confined to one party, that GOP does not spell 'God,' that we're all patriotic Americans and love our country and that we have a lot more in common and that our faith, in fact, tells us that we're all God's children.

SIEGEL: In addition to yourself, who else-and the gentlemen who were on the ticket that lost-who are the leaders of the Democratic Party right now? Who speaks for the Democrats to Americans?

Rep. PELOSI: Well, we have-in the House, of course, I'm very proudly the leader of the House Democrats, and I will be a strong vocal force for them. Senate-we'll see what happens on the Senate side. They have yet to elect their leader to replace Senator Daschle. I assume that will come soon. Then we have-we are very blessed throughout the country and throughout the Congress with many voices with strong standing on issues that the American people will hear. And it will be easier for them to hear them, frankly, in a non-presidential year where the focus is all on the White House and not on the day-to-day decisions that are made that affect people's lives.

SIEGEL: Well, whom do you have in mind? Who are the names of some of those people, when you say that?

Rep. PELOSI: Well, in our own House of Representatives, you know, I'm very proud of the strong voice of the chair of our Democratic Policy Committee, Congressman George Miller. Congressman Charles Rangel has been a leader in the Congress for many years. In the Senate, you know that Senator Reid is the deputy leader. Senator Durbin from Indiana-excuse me, Illinois...

SIEGEL: From Illinois, yeah.

Rep. PELOSI: ...is a strong leader, and he'll be joined by Obama. Certainly, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is a strong voice in our country.

But what is important about the Democratic Party is that we have a wide range of voices because we are about the issues and about the future, and not about demagoguing the issues of faith, family and patriotism to eclipse the important decisions that people-that are being made here. So again, standing on the issue goes across the board for many of our leaders, certainly our former president, President Clinton.

SIEGEL: I'm told that you spoke with him by phone today, with former President Clinton.

Rep. PELOSI: Yes, I did speak to him by phone today to...

SIEGEL: Very briefly, what did he have to say?

Rep. PELOSI: Well, I don't know if I'll share all of that with you because it was his information to give. But I think he was very proud of the Democratic effort. We were talking, though, where we go into the future, and we were talking about how we would work together to that end.

SIEGEL: That's House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, on where the Democratic Party goes from here.

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