parentheticalaside:

Omg this anecdote about Nancy Pelosi in a story about how awful Paul Ryan is [ETA: Oops, forgot to include the source. Here it is.] is the most amazing thing:

Nancy Pelosi is famously hard to interview, and was never a favorite among reporters the way Ryan is. But she was a far more effective speaker.

The example that always comes to mind to me is one that Tom Perriello, a Democrat who served one term in the House from a very red district in Virginia from 2009 to 2011 (and is now running for governor) told Ezra Klein back in December 2010. Perriello was weighing whether to vote for the DREAM Act, which would legalize the status of undocumented immigrants who arrived as children. “There was the whole question of whether the Senate would support it,” he told Klein. “And I didn’t want to do this if it was just going to die in the Senate.”

Then the lobbying started. “I got a call from [Education Secretary] Arne Duncan, and he began telling me about the individual anecdotes of guys that he worked with in Chicago who needed this legislation,” Perriello recalled. “There were strong Latino organizing networks that began moving, and someone I went to second grade with called and was like, ‘Tom, you might not vote for the DREAM Act? I know we haven’t talked in 32 years, but…’ A few of my friends from college started to call. Several people contacted colleagues I’d had in past jobs, so now they’re writing me. ‘Dude, I haven’t been following this, but I’ve heard from six people today that I have to call you about the DREAM Act. …’”

This is how Pelosi whipped votes. She got the administration involved, she got outside groups involved, she got random figures from Congress members’ pasts involved. She was really, really good at it. And it all happened quietly, without anyone watching or applauding.

I’ve noticed over the years that people hate Nancy Pelosi. I wondered for a while why people hated Nancy Pelosi. They never gave any concrete reasons, but they had this thread of near-violent rage in their voices whenever they spoke about her. Then I realized that all these people were men. And it clicked.