| I just got back from a fancy NYC fundraiser headlined by Nancy Pelosi for Kirsten Gillibrand to which I snagged a ticket. I wanted to ask Pelosi about Al Wynn, and I managed to get a response, though not a nice one.
The fundraiser was set on the 36th floor of a high rise in midtown overlooking a beautiful cityscape, and there were speeches by a number of Democrats thanking other Democrats and their various hosts. The gathering was full of New York finance and media types, people that are vaguely aware something is wrong but recognize the constraints of Congress, and want to make sure that Democrats stay in control. I sat next to a tall and regal older retired investment banker who says he gives money sometimes but 'isn't very political', is frustrated at the war, and thinks Bernanke's rate cut was smart. Before that conversation, I had talked to a beautiful and intelligent woman who works for the Oxygen network. An avid Obama supporter, she described herself as a moderate Democrat and hinted at some mild frustration that online quizzes told her she was actually liberal because she doesn't like liberal elites. It was that kind of scene.
Pelosi spoke in her usual nice but vaguely incoherent style, and she listed a litany of accomplishments of the new Democratic Congress, as well as promises to do things she can't possibly get done, like passing a good energy bill. She capped her talk with a strange apology/non-apology for not being able to do anything on the war, and promised to impose a timeline. Ironically, during the standing ovation, I got an email on my blackberry saying that $200B was going to be appropriated to Bush to continue the war in Iraq.
I got the sense that it was a well-heeled New York community of fundraising circuit people who likw Democrats and like these fundraisers, and there were lots of 'thank you's and standing ovations and appreciation. Pelosi was there, as was Carol Shea-Porter, Betty Sutton, Charlie Rangel, Richard Holbrooke, Geraldine Ferraro, Allyson Schwartz, and Kirsten Gillibrand, who was the host of the event.
I went up to Pelosi after her odd speech to ask her in person about her support for Al Wynn. I said 'I helped organize a fundraiser for Donna Edwards', and I was about to talk about retroactive immunity and ask her to take this as a sign of frustration, as well as to tell her how proud she makes me as the first female Speaker of the House. But the moment I mentioned Al Wynn, Pelosi's whole face abruptly changed, her smile melted away, and she got hostile and said in an icy voice 'I know about that.' She then turned away to talk to someone else. That's happened to me only one other time in politics, when I said to Jerry McNerney that I was a blogger.
I also managed to chat with Kirsten Gillibrand. Gillibrand's a very smart and very lovely person, and she's aware that activists in her district are frustrated. And she's frustrated too in her own way, and explained that change is much slower than she'd like. And yet, I get the sense that there's very little that she can do about it, and that even if there were something she could do it's not clear that she would.
And I think I realized then that there seem to be two types of frustration, insider frustration and activist frustration. Many of the Democrats in Congress, Pelosi for instance, are insider frustrated. They know something is vaguely wrong somewhere, they know their activists supporters are unhappy, they are still raising lots of money, they know they are in power and feted at fancy breakfasts, and they are unwilling to consider new strategies that actually challenge the constraints they see as permanent.
And when someone else does, they get mean, their face turns cold, and they walk away. |
