Nancy Pelosi

Awesome woman of the day is Nancy Pelosi (born, Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro March 26, 1940).

Nancy Pelosi was born in a political family, so going into politics was no great leap for her. Her father and brother were both Mayor of Baltimore.

She grew up in Maryland, attending Catholic schools and then Trinity College. She married in 1963 to Paul Pelosi and moved to California, They had five children whom she raised before running for elected office.

Congresswoman Pelosi is also the grandmother of eight, and when then President Bush called to congratulate her on her Speakership, she was expecting a call from her pregnant daughter and answered the phone, “Is there a baby?” probably confusing the president.

She worked her way up in Democratic politics in California, but didn’t become active in seeking office until her youngest child was a senior in high school.

Ms. Pelosi was the first woman elected as House Minority Whip in 2001, and the first House Leader in 2006. The congresswoman famously said she’d have no problem herding the unruly Democrats by using, “ . . . my mother of five voice.”

In recent memory I can’t recall any speaker who was maligned as Nancy Pelosi was. They criticized everything from her liberal politics to her looks to her use of a government aircraft (mandated by the Secret Service). Not to mention the amount of sexist criticism she received. All of this had some root, I believe of how effective she was.

In my lifetime the only leaders she compares to would be Tip O’Neil, and Sam Rayburn (who was the longest serving speaker in history) The volume of legislation she passed is record setting. The tragedy is how much of it died in the Senate.

Thomas Mann, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution, said "she's probably gained the reputation as of one of the strongest and most effective speakers in decades." Congressional scholar Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute commented in May on the work of the Congress Pelosi is helping lead: "This Congress has been as active and productive as any I can remember. The number of major bills passed and enacted into law, the serious, sustained activities in areas of broad, complex, and critical importance, all are truly impressive."

She is still the leader of the House Democrats and an impressive woman. I have disagreed with some of her stands and legislation, but no doubt she is an incredibly awesome woman.

Nancy Wake

The Awesome Woman today is Nancy Wake.  She died recently at the age of 98, and live a life which sounds more like a novel than reality.  She was the youngest of six children, born in New Zealand and raised in Australia; her father abandoned the family and her mother raised the children on her own.

Nancy ran away from home at 16 and worked as a nurse, eventually making her way to new York and London.  She married a French nobleman who was a resistance fighter and for a short while lived a life of luxury.  When the Germans invaded, her husband was captured. Prior to that she was active in the resistance and had helped many fighters escape the Nazis.

She became a spy for the resistance and led an 'army' of 7000, in fighting the Germans. She was able to evade capture and sometimes flirt her way to escape as the Gemans could not believe someone as beautiful and feminine was so tough. She was known to have strangled an SS agent with her bare hands, and executed a German spy.  She swore and drank with the best (or worst) of them and was number one on the German's most wanted list with a prize of 7 million francs on her head.  She was an expert shot, and led her force against a force of 22000 Germans, causing 1400 casualties while losing only 100.
AT the end of the war, Nancy learned that her husband had been tortured to death for refusing to give up information about her.

After the war she won honors from France, Britain and the U.S.

She remarried in 1957 and moved back to Australia where she was active in local politics running for office for the Liberal party. 

She eventually moved to Britain and ended her days in the Royal Star and Garter home for disabled vets.
When asked how she would like to be remembered she replied that she hopes to go down in history as the woman who turned down 7,000 sex-starved Frenchmen, and said: "I got away with blue murder and loved every minute of it."

Ann Richards

Ann Richards was the second woman to be governor of Texas, the first in her own right.
Governor does not even begin to describe this motorcycle-driving grandma.

She was a quick-witted warm-hearted Texan who symbolized the best of the Lone Star state.

She married her high school sweetheart and had four children. She taught school early in her career and was active in local politics, education being one of her main causes. At the urging of her husband she ran for higher office and won the election as the first female commissioner of Travis County.  The win was a bitter one, as it led to the breakup of her marriage and forced her to confront her alcoholism.  She entered rehab and came out sober.  Then continued to be an advocate for addiction and recovery. To quote Molly Ivins, “To see the governor of Texas sitting in a circle of convicted criminals saying, ‘My name is Ann and I’m an alcoholic’ is to learn a great deal about recovery.”

She then ran for and was elected state treasurer in 1982, and became a national figure when she gave the keynote address at the democratic Convention in 1988. Ann famously said about George H. W. Bush, “Poor George, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.” And she is credited with saying that “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did.  She just did it backwards and in high heels.”

She was elected Governor of Texas in 1990, and set a liberal agenda, hiring the first women and minorities across state offices, including the Texas Rangers. Molly Ivins described her thusly, “She was a great politician who was remarkably good at governing.”  She was a hard working governor who was gracious, charming and generous.  She opened the governor’s office to groups of all ages and stripes.  Education and school finance were her key issues.   When the gun proponents said that women might feel safer if they could carry guns in their purses, her reply was, “Well, I’m not sexist, but there is not a woman in this state who could find a gun in her handbag, much less a lipstick.”

After she lost to George W Bush she worked as an advisor and campaigner for many Democratic candidates.  Richards also served as a trustee at Brandeis University.

In her 2006, the Austin Independent School District announced the opening of the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, a college prep school for girls in grades 6-12.

Her many awards include, the Texas NAACP Presidential Award for Outstanding Contributions to Civil rights, The National Wildlife Federation Conservation Achievement Award, and the Texas Women’s hall of Fame honoree for Public Service.
After being diagnosed with Osteoporosis, she changed her lifestyle and diet, and wrote a book about it. In 2006 she  announced that she had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and died in September of that year.

Barbara Jordan

Barbara Jordan (1936 – 1996) was an American politician who was the first African-American elected to the Texas Senate after reconstruction and the first Southern black woman ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous other honors. On her death she became the first African-American woman to be interred in the Texas State Cemetery. The main terminal of Austin-Bergstrom Airport is named for her.

 
In 1972, she was elected to the United States House of Representatives, She was also the first woman to represent Texas in the House in her own. In 1974, she made an influential, televised speech before the House Judiciary Committee supporting the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.

Jordan was mentioned as a possible running mate to Jimmy Carter in 1976 and that year she became the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. That speech was ranked 5th in "Top 100 American Speeches of the 20th century" list and was considered by many historians to have been the best convention keynote speech in modern history. Despite not being a candidate Jordan received one delegate vote for president at the convention.

Jordan's companion of close to 30 years was Nancy Earl. Jordan never publicly acknowledged her sexual orientation, but in her obituary, the Houston Chronicle mentioned her long relationship with Earl.
Jordan retired from politics in 1979 and became an adjunct professor teaching ethics at the University of Texas at Austin Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. She again was a keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention in 1992.

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Geraldine Ferraro

The Woman of the Day is Geraldine Ferraro, born in 1935 and died today. A savvy New York Democrat, she was an attorney, a Democratic Party notable, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (New York/Queens). In 1984 she was embraced as a symbol of women's equality when she became the first Italian-American and first woman to be a major-party Vice Presidential nominee, selected by Walter Mondale who tried to unseat Ronald Reagan.

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