By David Rogers
Three months before what certainly will be brutal House elections Speaker Nancy Pelosi is again the happy campaigner vowing to defend every grain of sand" of what shes built in Congress and predicting this August will prove kinder to Democrats than a year ago. They kept hope alive last August" she said of rank-and-file lawmakers who weathered stormy town meetings & still came back to help her enact health care reform.
Last year they had to defend a bill that wasnt even settled upon" says Pelosi.
Now House Democrats are going home for summer recess with a specific portfolio of accomplishments" and a gentle reminder from Pelosi that all politics is personal."
The massive health care overhaul has morphed into a patients bill of rights;" Wall Street reform is consumer protection."
Nobody wants you to go out there and talk about legislation; they want to talk about the impact it has on them" Pelosi said.
As Tip ONeill says All politics is local. I always say All politics is personal."
Pelosi knows too that the GOP will be getting personal with her as well. No one of stature comparable to the speakers is on the ballot and her San Francisco base and stylish ways make her a target for Republican campaigns. They have over and over again" she said of the attack spots already running. If we werent effective they wouldnt be coming after us. They dont like the things that we have done. The special interests had all the leverage here. Now the people have the leverage." Playing defense will also be a big change. The 2006 and 2008 campaigns which built Pelosis power were assaults on an established Republican order in Congress and the White House. Now in a punishing economic environment the roles are reversed. If Democrats are to survive aides predict the tough-minded Pelosi will face a painful chore: performing the triage needed when money runs
low and old friends and allies must be cut loose to save those who have a better chance of winning.
That will be a new experience for her as leader and one reason perhaps why Pelosi longs to regain the offensive.
Were still on offense because Republicans have declared they want to go back to the exact agenda of before" she insists. And then later If we hadnt won the continuation of those policies would have taken us another day older and deeper in debt twice as many jobs lost Great Depression 2.0."
As she spoke Thursday the man who would be speaker Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) was tromping through Pelosis old Appropriations Committee turf suddenly showing up with multiple amendments to spending bills on the House floor.
Its time for us to get serious about spending at every level" said Boehner who has rarely ventured into this territory in the past.
But the speaker professed indifference: I dont even know what hes doing" she said breaking into laugher. Indeed what happens on the House floor means less and less as the focus turns toward November.
The House wont return until Sept. 14 and then will stay for just four weeks. A year-end spending resolution will be needed and Democrats still hope that the Senate sends them small-business and jobs legislation.
But on the sensitive issue of extending middle-class tax cuts set to expire in December Pelosi has yielded the initiative to the Senate and the White House.
The Senate is supposed to go first on this and the president will be taking the lead" she said. When we come back well see. ... Right now the ball is in their 
court."
But she saved her most pointed shots for the Senate Republicans who have succeeding in slowing or blocking so much of her agenda in this Congress.
Most sensitive are jobs-related legislation and aid to cash-strapped states.
If we allow the states to go down it will be a recession that will be very hard to dig out of" Pelosi said of pending aid to help governors meet Medicaid costs. And in a riff on climate change legislation her great passion Pelosi likened the Senate to the glaciers themselves.
Theres an expression that decision making is glacial" she said. Well in the Senate glacial would be fast because the glaciers are melting faster than the Republicans in the Senate can make decisions about recognizing climate change."
For Pelosi the ethics storm over former Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) is wearing. And this will be the first campaign season Pelosi enters without her friend the late Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.).
Its just hard for me to believe that he is not here; its tough" she said. He was an unvarnished candid voice on what should be happening in terms of Afghanistan and as you know Iraq."
But Pelosi who will be 72 by the end of the next Congress pushes away any suggestion of retirement. Havent even given it a thought" she said. Having said that Im not here to break any records of longevity" she adds laughing. My husband might be listening."
Im agenda-driven" and the great unfinished piece of her agenda climate change and energy independence legislation still eats at her.
Its a long fight. Its one that wont go away just because the votes arent there in the Senate. ... Its not Oh we lost that; lets go here.
Well either lead or be left behind on the green technologies of the future. Nobodys waiting for us to figure it out."
Were going forward. Were not going back."
