When Harry caucused with Nancy

The great thing about following politics is that, like in sports, you get to watch the same person react to different situations and grow or not grow over the years.

And, depending on the team around the politician/athlete, years of futility and losing can be washed away with mind-boggling joy in a heartbeat, or vice versa. Which can bring out hidden or just overlooked qualities in a person.

I went into this election season hoping, and believing that the Democrats would take both the House and Senate, despite my dislike for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Not a strong, active dislike--just a feeling that they weren't my kind of people, that they weren't Howard Dean and Bill Clinton Democrats--loud and proud and inventive and savvy.

Well, I could be wrong. A close friend tonight was telling me how she's warmed up to Pelosi (and how surprisingly jazzed she is about a woman in the speaker position--but that's another post).

I have to admit, watching Pelosi on tv the past few days I found myself thinking she seemed appealing, neither the frosty nor scatter-brained type I'd imagined her to be. I couldn't recall seeing much of Reid until today; and even then, he per usual made no real impression on me, which I see as a liability for the man who would be the anti-Bush.

But then I turned to the Times, that trusty profiler of people big and small; the newspaper of record has really done a good job of adding that 60 Minutes-style personal touch the last few years--as our society has become increasingly personality-driven--while avoiding the pitfall of schmaltz.

And I liked what I read about Pelosi and Reid... although I do wish the articles weren't written in such stereotypical pink/blue ways--sheesh!

I look forward to more from Nancy and Harry; it'll be interesting to see how they exercise power after being so long in the shadows.

Nancy Pelosi Is Ready to Be Voice of the Majority, Kate Zernike: As Representative Nancy Pelosi faced the cameras Wednesday morning, after the Democrats had taken a majority in the House and put her on the brink of becoming the first female speaker, she spoke so softly at first that some reporters insisted they could not hear her.

“I’m not in charge of the technical arrangements,” Ms. Pelosi said quietly, fiddling with the microphone.

Then suddenly, she was commanding: “But I could use my mother-of-five voice!”

It is a line Ms. Pelosi uses often, and a voice she may have to rely on frequently as she tries to ensure that the new Democratic majority lasts more than two years. ...

While she had long opposed the war, she also realized that a liberal congresswoman from California would have little impact in speaking out against it. And she pushed back against liberal members of her party who wanted to protest by denying financing for the war. Instead, she worked quietly with Representative John P. Murtha, a conservative Democrat from Pennsylvania and a veteran who had supported the war, to get him to express his growing doubts about it.

Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said: “The most credible person in the Democratic Party would be the face of the party on this issue. She knew that because he had supported it, he had the greatest credibility to critique it.”

Mr. Markey called Ms. Pelosi a liberal pragmatist: “San Francisco on the inside, Baltimore on the outside.”

Harry Reid, an Infighter With a Sharp Jab , Mark Leibovich: ... Mr. Reid is low-key, deferential and somewhat sheepish, qualities that make it easy to misread or underestimate him.

“People can say he is a nice guy, but that just totally misses it,” said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York. “He’s got a spine of steel, and he will go toe-to-toe with anyone.”

Harry Mason Reid is the product of the tiny desert town of Searchlight, Nev., whose father, a hard-rock miner, battled alcoholism and depression before killing himself at 58. The future senator hitchhiked 40 miles to attend high school in Henderson, where he became an amateur boxer.

He came to Washington to attend law school, working nights as a Capitol police officer. He was elected to the Nevada State Assembly at 28, served as lieutenant governor and later led the state’s Gaming Commission, a job that pitted him against organized crime figures. (Mr. Reid’s wife, Landra, once found a bomb under the hood of the family car.) He was elected to Congress in 1982, and moved to the Senate four years later. ...

But he has also enjoyed the loyalty and, for the most part, the unity of a potentially fractious Democratic caucus that includes several would-be presidential candidates.

That devotion was displayed and returned on election night, as Mr. Reid placed phone calls to successful Democratic Senate candidates from his suite at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.

“Bob, you did it, my man,” Mr. Reid said to Senator Robert Menendez, who was re-elected in New Jersey.

“Hillary, you’re the best to work with,” Mr. Reid told Mrs. Clinton. “Love you,” he signed off. (Mrs. Clinton offers that she ended the call by saying, “Love you, too, Harry.”)

Mr. Reid also professed his love to Senator Kent Conrad, who was re-elected in North Dakota. (“Love you, man.”)

Later, when Claire C. McCaskill, another Democrat, was declared the winner in Missouri, Mr. Reid kissed the television.

He and Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New Yorker who leads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, kept whacking each other like kids. “Remember, Chuck, when they said Sherrod was too liberal?” Mr. Reid said of Sherrod Brown, the newly elected senator from Ohio.

Mr. Schumer said nothing, but gave Mr. Reid something between a pat on the head and a noogie.

AP photo of Harry Reid with Nancy Pelosi at an election-night rally by Gerald Herbert.