Democrats Head Into Weekend in Buoyant Mood
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

SAN FRANCISCO — Democratic leaders, including President Clinton and the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, are expressing increasing confidence that they have upset the carefully honed political formula that has delivered a congressional majority to the Republican Party for more than a decade.
In appearances before faithful Democrats across the country, Mr. Clinton and others have asserted that Republican strategists are off their game, shaken by failures in Iraq, corruption in Washington, and runaway federal spending.
“The reason we are at this moment is that they do not represent faithfully the Republicans and the more conservative independents in the country. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here tonight,” the former president told donors attending a fund-raiser Wednesday night at a downtown San Francisco theater. “This is a sweeping, deep, big thing. … If you’re a conservative on the budget, on law enforcement, on the rule of law, when it comes to the environment, on the conservation of our military resources, you have to be a Democrat.”
Americans are no longer responding to the tried-and-true Republican campaign tactic of caricaturing Democrats as wide-eyed liberals, Mr. Clinton said.
“For so long their strategy of turning us from three-dimensional human beings into two-dimensional cartoons worked for them, that they ran that old dog out of the chute one time too many,” Mr. Clinton said. “I don’t want to be told that I have to vote because I should ‘be very afraid,'” he added, putting spooky emphasis on the word, “very.”
The fund-raiser brought in $2.5 million, the largest haul of the year for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. At times the event, which drew nearly 1,800 people, seemed like an ebullient coronation for Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat who is expected to become speaker of the House if her party can pick up 15 seats on Tuesday.
In recent weeks, Ms. Pelosi has become a poster child of sorts for Republican get-out-the-vote efforts, as GOP leaders warn of the specter of a San Francisco liberal overseeing the Congress.
“I could just see the Republicans licking their chops when Nancy got to be our leader,” Mr. Clinton said. “They love to make all those speeches about the San Francisco Democrats. It’s part of their shtick, you know. It’s part of their ‘be very afraid’ shtick.”
The former president said Republicans have misjudged Ms. Pelosi. “They had forgotten that she’s the nice Catholic girl from Baltimore with five kids, five grandkids. Her daddy was the mayor and she’s tougher than all of them put together. And they are about to learn this,” Mr. Clinton said.
“Are you ready for victory?” Ms. Pelosi asked the roaring crowd when it was her turn to speak. “Six more days, 15 more seats. We’re not there yet.”
While the congresswoman cautioned against overconfidence, she did not refrain from publicly imagining taking the reins of power in the House. “What I’ll be doing is taking that gavel from the speaker and from the hand of special interests and putting it in the hands of America’s children, so that everything we do is for them,” she said.
Ms. Pelosi ticked off the Democratic agenda, which includes broader stem cell research and implementing the reforms proposed by the so-called September 11 commission. For Republican leaders, the only solace at Wednesday’s gathering may have been her promise to see that the House is administered in a bipartisan fashion and that the minority’s parliamentary rights are respected.
Straying a bit from Mr. Clinton’s unifying message, the chairman of the Democratic fund-raising committee for the house, Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, used a military metaphor to urge that no quarter be given to the Republicans.
“When the enemy is in retreat, you go down and get them and make sure they know what came and hit them,” the congressman said.
Mr. Emanuel said that only one incumbent Democrat in the House faces a serious challenge, while 46 Republican seats are in jeopardy. “We’re playing offense. They’re playing defense,” he said, before adding his own warning about underestimating the opposition.
“They are not going to roll over and play dead so we can scratch their bellies,” Mr. Emanuel said. “This is about power. It’s about whether they reward their friends or whether we take care of the folks that need a voice in their government.”
In one of the evening’s lighter moments, Mr. Emanuel, a former political director and policy adviser in the Clinton White House, broke out an imitation of his former boss. “This is a big election about big things,” Mr. Emanuel said, with his Chicago accent only slightly obscuring Mr. Clinton’s Arkansas drawl. The former White House aide seemed to delight in publicly poking fun at his mentor, seated just a few feet away. “You can’t fire my ass,” Mr. Emanuel joked.
Event organizers said earlier this week that no press coverage would be permitted, a stance that seemed intended to preclude news footage of wine-sipping San Francisco liberals prematurely celebrating a Democratic victory.
At the last minute, however, cameras were allowed in to cover a brief speech by the party’s nominee for governor, Phil Angelides, who is trailing far behind Governor Schwarzenegger in opinion polls.
Mr. Angelides said he hoped to be swept into the governor’s office next Tuesday on the momentum of a broad Democratic victory.
“That Democratic wave is going to crest in the Golden State of California,” Mr. Angelides said. He tried to be upbeat while acknowledging the uphill battle he faces. “This is no time to spike the ball and I guarantee I’m not doing that.”
After Mr. Angelides spoke, he struck a pose with Mr. Clinton for the benefit of the photographers. The camera crews were escorted out before the former president offered an endorsement of Mr. Angelides. “I think you are a great citizen and would make a great governor,” Mr. Clinton said, while praising the former Democratic state party chairman for helping deliver California’s electoral votes in 1992.
The New York Sun obtained a ticket to the event from a labor organization. Tickets ranged from $100 each for balcony seating to $25,000 a couple for a private reception with Mr. Clinton and other dignitaries. Before the speaking program, guests were entertained by performances from Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, and Bonnie Raitt. Many of the songs had emphatic anti-war messages, which drew enthusiastic responses from the crowd.
One of the hosts for the evening, Kathryn Taylor, told the audience that she hoped Democrats would govern with “the courage and strategic optimism of Lincoln, the pacifist strength and dogged practice of Gandhi, the surprising and restorative forgiveness of Mandela, and the enormous capacity for love and tolerance of every mother.”
However, the speakers generally avoided talk of polarizing social issues where Democrats are sometimes seen as out of touch with the mainstream. In an unusual departure for a gathering of Bay Area Democrats, no mention was made of abortion rights or of the gay marriage showdown that drew national attention two years ago and is still reverberating across the country.