Nancy Pelosi Learned Her Politics At the Elbow of Her Father the Mayor
When she wasn't racing to school at St. Leo's in her blue uniform or buying sweets in Mugavero's Confectionery or playing on front stoops up and down the block, Little Nancy sometimes worked the front desk at the family home at 245 Albemarle St., taking down the requests and sad stories of the folks who arrived to seek help from Big Tommy, her dad.
Or maybe she was riding around with her dad and his bullhorn, as he touted his candidacy from a convertible.
The late Thomas J. D'Alesandro Jr., also known as Old Tommy or Tommy the Elder, was the flamboyant and legendary machine politician, a Roosevelt Democrat, whose only daughter is the woman poised to be the speaker of the House, second in line of succession from the presidency.
She grew up stuffing envelopes for her dad. She grew up watching how the political game was played. She saw how favors were handed out, how chits were called in. She watched her mother balance full-time motherhood with grass-roots organizing, and later followed her example. Albemarle Street was Nancy Pelosi's training ground, the center of a political universe forged from a community as tight-knit as an Italian village.
Critics deride Pelosi, 66, for a presumed lightweight liberalism they attribute to her latter-day home in San Francisco. But her liberalism -- and the keen political instincts and skill at the inside parry of the game -- can be traced more deeply and more precisely back to Albemarle Street, to the political empire that grew there when her father held court through decades of an intensely political life.
Read entire article at WaPo
Or maybe she was riding around with her dad and his bullhorn, as he touted his candidacy from a convertible.
The late Thomas J. D'Alesandro Jr., also known as Old Tommy or Tommy the Elder, was the flamboyant and legendary machine politician, a Roosevelt Democrat, whose only daughter is the woman poised to be the speaker of the House, second in line of succession from the presidency.
She grew up stuffing envelopes for her dad. She grew up watching how the political game was played. She saw how favors were handed out, how chits were called in. She watched her mother balance full-time motherhood with grass-roots organizing, and later followed her example. Albemarle Street was Nancy Pelosi's training ground, the center of a political universe forged from a community as tight-knit as an Italian village.
Critics deride Pelosi, 66, for a presumed lightweight liberalism they attribute to her latter-day home in San Francisco. But her liberalism -- and the keen political instincts and skill at the inside parry of the game -- can be traced more deeply and more precisely back to Albemarle Street, to the political empire that grew there when her father held court through decades of an intensely political life.