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Just Do It

Nancy Pelosi


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Published: Jul 29, 2008

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Tue., Aug. 5, 7 p.m., $12, Free Library, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St., 215-686-5322, freelibrary.org

Nancy Pelosi's message to young women with big ambitions can be summed up in one phrase, which was part of her inaugural speech as the first female speaker of the House of Representatives: "We have made history, now let us make progress."

That same motto closes the first chapter of her new book, Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters (Doubleday, $23.95). It's a sometimes-campy, sometimes-insider-y look into the story of Pelosi's upbringing in the politics of Baltimore and her eventual transformation from California housewife to the highest-ranking woman in the history of the United States government.

As far as progress, her trip to the Free Library couldn't have been better timed. It was last week when the Democratic leadership in the House, led by Pelosi, finally overcame President Bush's veto threats and bully-pulpit tactics on a variety of proposals and passed a wide-ranging bill aimed at fixing the housing crisis. (Democrats have not been so successful against the president's threats in the recent past.) In other words, Pelosi's visit will come on the heels of one of the most major successes in her 19-month tenure as speaker.

How to succeed in politics, though, isn't the central message of her book. Instead, it tries to be more of an inspiration to young women with a goal, acknowledging that there are many people who would rather notice a female's hair than her ideas. That's the stuff, Pelosi says, that needs to be brushed aside, like when some Democratic elders asked, "Who said she could run?" when she sought a high-ranking seat in the party in 2000. "That," she says, "put me into fighting mode."