Opinion: Nancy Pelosi agrees that sexism hindered Hillary Clinton

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco never officially chose sides in the Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama battle for the Democratic presidential nomination. But most of those reading tea leaves assumed her heart was with the eventual winner.

A clear sign to many came when her longtime friend and ally, Rep. George Miller of the Bay Area, endorsed Obama in early January -- a time when the race was still completely up for grabs. Then, as Obama was winning contest after contest in February, Pelosi began stressing that the party’s superdelegates would be ill-advised to overturn the will of primary and caucus voters -- comments widely interpreted as a nod toward the senator from Illinois.

Regardless, Pelosi today gave a nod to the senator from New York, agreeing with the widespread perception among many Clinton supporters that her White House bid was hindered by pervasive sexism.

‘Yes, there was sexism,’ Pelosi said at a Washington breakfast with reporters. But, the Baltimore Sun’s Paul West reports, the speaker stopped short of singling out such bias as the main reason for Clinton’s candidacy falling by the wayside.

West’s full report on Pelosi’s comments on this and other political matters can be read here on the Chicago Tribune’s Swamp blog.

-- Don Frederick