Nancy Pelosi has represented San Francisco in Congress for nearly four decades. Challengers are lining up as she weighs running again or retiring.
Nancy Pelosi flicked her hand like she was shooing away a gnat.
She had just been asked whether she was concerned about her new challenger in next year’s election to represent San Francisco in Congress. His name, Saikat Chakrabarti, is unfamiliar to many of the city’s voters. But it’s one that gets under Ms. Pelosi’s skin, given the tense history between the two Democrats going back to his brief and contentious time on Capitol Hill.
“I have them every time,” she said of challengers as she made the hand flick.
Then came an even peskier question. Will this term in Congress — her 20th — be her last?
“I didn’t come here to talk politics,” she snapped. “When I’m in a political arena, I’ll have an answer for you. But that doesn’t worry me one bit.”
Then, turning to members of her staff as they escorted her out of a San Francisco media event, she asked, “Why do they always give women the dumb questions?”
The subject is not as dumb as she might think.
For voters and political insiders in California and beyond, the question of whether she will or she won’t when it comes to her retirement is having a moment. No one knows the answer for certain, but everyone seems to have an opinion on the pros and cons, and the implications, either way.
Ms. Pelosi has been representing San Francisco in Congress for more than 37 years, having first been elected in 1987. Locally, she is not so much a political figure but an era unto herself. She’ll be 86 when her current term expires and has lately been recovering from a December fall, on the marble staircase of a palace in Luxembourg, that required emergency hip replacement surgery.