SAN FRANCISCO
Will Elizabeth Dole or Dianne Feinstein move into the vice presidential mansion in Washington, D.C.? Because presidential nominees will be chosen early, speculation will focus on the gender of possible running mates. But another contest, more grounded in probability, could elect the first female member of Congress to a leadership post.
Representative Nancy Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco since 1987, is running for House majority whip and expects to win. This race is speculative, too. The job won't exist unless Democrats recapture the speaker's gavel.
Democrats need to win five more seats, and Pelosi hopes to deliver four from her own state with four fund-raisers before California's primary March 7. Raising dough is part of the leadership DNA, at least since Tip O'Neill parlayed savvy, charm, and a Midas touch into the whip's job in 1971.
This race centers less on ideology than on personality and regional strength. Pelosi's opponents, Steny Hoyer of Maryland and John Lewis of Georgia, are well-respected Democrats from below the Mason-Dixon line. Both share Pelosi's liberal voting record.
Pelosi thinks she has a chance to be the first female House speaker in history because of geography as much as gender.
''When I'm out here, I am constantly energized by prospects for the future.
''`Let's do it' is in the air, it's in the water.'' But back in D.C., ''we debate old ideas on stale assumptions.''
''Californians deal with transportation, urban issues, agriculture, trade - all the big issues,'' she adds. ''California has to be represented in the leadership.'' When the late Phillip Burton of San Francisco lost the House majority leadership by one vote in 1976, California had 43 House members. Today, it has 52.
''I'm a traditional, regular Democrat, a liberal Democrat,'' Pelosi says. She was born that way in Baltimore in 1940 when her father, Thomas D'Alesandro, was serving the first of five terms in the House before becoming mayor of Baltimore. Her brother, Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., was also mayor of Baltimore.
Pelosi knew she was making progress when some colleagues asked ''What's the hurry?'' when she first unveiled her ambitions in 1998. A former state chairwoman, she has lost only one election, when she ran for chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee in 1985: ''That race was instructive for me. Paul Kirk, a good man, got in early. He won. I learned a lesson.''
If Pelosi wins, tokenism or symbolism will count less than her unglamorous work in House committees. Some of her assignments - on ethics, for instance - are thankless tasks. As the senior Democrat on the Foreign Operations subcommittee, she works on debt relief, an issue with few headlines or political payoffs. Last year, during a holiday recess, her work on the House Intelligence Committee meant a tour of North Korea. Second prize, two weeks in Pyongyang.
Her supporters include Joseph Moakley of Massachusetts and John Murtha of Pensylvania, both shrewd vote-counters. But the work of a whip is, as its name suggests, confrontational. In 1985, some Democrats opposed making the job elective. ''My view then and now is that it shouldn't be a popularity contest,'' former representative Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois says. ''But Nancy Pelosi is very unusual. She has a lot of political moxie. She's a tremendously hard worker. I wouldn't sell Nancy short.''
A mother of five and grandmother of four, Pelosi counts ethnicity as an asset: ''It's important for the Democratic party to state that Italian-Americans need apply. It's a banner I carry very proudly.''
As for gender: ''I'm not running as a woman, but we should understand who elects Democrats. I have the credentials. Being a woman is sort of a bonus.''
Can she handle the job? ''I prefer the word `strong' to `tough.' I'm a pretty strong person. I think my colleagues know that.''
Martin F. Nolan's column appears regularly in the Globe.
