Pollster: Voters OK With Pelosi
New House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made a generally favorable impression on voters so far, despite efforts by Republicans to demonize her in the last election campaign as a left-wing extremist. Based on her first few weeks as House leader, Pelosi doesn't strike Americans as the out-of-touch "San Francisco liberal" as caricatured by conservatives, according to Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg.
Instead, she comes across as more of a pragmatist, in keeping with her roots as the daughter and sister of two mayors of Baltimore, where she lived in her youth. Allies of Pelosi say she pointedly hasn't focused on divisive social issues popular with liberal Democrats, such as promoting gun control and support for a woman's right to choose an abortion. A recent Greenberg poll for Democracy Corps found that Pelosi had a favorability rating of 50.9 on a scale of 100.
That may not sound very high, but it's considerably better than President Bush's score of 42.6. By way of contrast, the unpopular Iraq war got a 35.6 favorability rating. The Democratic Party received 53.9 and the Republican Party 44.7.