Pelosi's challenge.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Not only do the Republicans understandably relish their re-taking of Congress in last week's elections, they are also frothing in glee at the House Democrats' selection of liberal Nancy Pelosi as the successor to Dick Gephardt as House minority leader. The GOP should temper its glee.

Yes, Pelosi is a liberal - a "San Francisco liberal" no less - and, yes, there are many within the Democratic Party who think the party lost last week because it was not centrist enough. Pelosi did vote against the administration's war resolution on Iraq, the Bush tax cut last year and she is a human rights advocate. So her liberal credentials are solid.

But Pelosi's main political strength - or at least her main potential political strength - lies in her political skills. As her son said of his mom: "She's been on the phone for 32 years." Her ascendancy to become the highest ranking female in congressional history rests not on her gender or her liberalism. It rests on her working her backside off for fellow Democrats, including raising some $8 million for her party's congressional candidates and campaigning at her party's candidate's side in 90 separate congressional districts.

In short, she's paid her dues and her reward, at least for now, is her new position as minority leader. But that office in hand, what's next for Pelosi and the Democrats?

If there was a party-wide failing in the election for the Democrats, it was their inability to articulate a clear alternative voice to that of Republicans. Yes, they were sorely disadvantaged by President Bush's widespread popularity and the inescapable fact that, to most Americans the nation was already at war when the voting took place.

But there is nonetheless among the citizenry a concern about going to war with Saddam Hussein, an enemy who is without doubt a danger but who, at least so far, has not been proven to have harmed Americans or their country. And once war begins, if it does, and American casualties mount, the fervor for war and the patriotism that accompanied it on Election Day, will wane.

Iraq and Saddam aside, there are many areas where the Democrats can and should distinguish themselves from the new Republican majority. Health care, the economy, the environment, corporate scandals and a host of other issues need to be discussed in a way that distinguishes the two parties' approaches to such issues. The Democrats didn't do that in this election. They were too much of a me-too party and that's not good for the democratic process. Voters need - deserve - choices of ideas as well as candidates.

That's the new challenge for Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats: to rediscover what the party stands for and to articulate that to the American people. That didn't happen in this election and the Democrats suffered mightily for it. For their own good, and for the good of the democratic process, the Democrats can move left, right or toward the center. But in moving, they must know why - and let the country know, too.