Political circles are buzzing — have you heard about the “shadow campaign” between state Sen. Scott Wiener and the Pelosi dynasty?
Some of Nancy Pelosi’s recent moves in San Francisco have been cast as an effort to derail Wiener’s quest for her House seat when she retires. Supposedly, the speaker emerita is clearing the way for her daughter, political strategist Christine Pelosi, to be her heir apparent.
From publicly spurning Wiener’s AI safety bill in the state Senate to endorsing progressives on the Board of Supervisors, it’s all a game of 3D chess engineered by a Democrat so powerful she dissuaded a sitting president from seeking reelection, the whisperers say.
One person thinks that’s all bunk: Christine.
Deep in the bowels of the Milton Marks Conference Center during an otherwise routine meeting of the San Francisco Democratic Party on Wednesday night, the 58-year-old waited her turn to speak at the podium behind angry Sunset district neighbors advocating against changes to the roadway by Ocean Beach.
Just before the peak of those residents’ bellicose testimony, The Standard bluntly asked Christine Pelosi if there is a shadow campaign underway — one swaying her mother’s stance on Wiener’s AI bill or the opposition of other Democrats, like Mayor London Breed.
“No. I don’t know why Mayor London Breed opposed his AI bill. Maybe she’s running for Congress? I thought Scott was running for Senate. I thought Breed was running for mayor,” Pelosi said jokingly, seeming to wave away conspiratorial chatter.
She said Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential run is her priority.
“We are just moving forward, one foot in front of the other, to November.”
And as for Wiener?
“I don’t know where he thinks my mind is. But nobody asks me.”
The younger Pelosi hasn’t touched publicly on her rumored run for Congress, perhaps in an effort not to fuel speculation. And while Wiener has declined to speak directly on any effort to maneuver him away from Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat, his allies have been more than willing to pipe up on his behalf.
A spokesperson for the speaker emerita declined to comment, deferring to her Thursday interview on KQED’s Forum about her new book, “The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House.” During the nearly hourlong discussion, Pelosi rejected talk of any behind-the-scenes political machinations for her daughter. She said her opposition to Wiener’s AI legislation was based purely on her concerns with its implications.
“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” Pelosi said. “I find it insulting that they would equate politics with policy for the AI bill.”
She added, “It has nothing to do with elections. And my daughter and I haven’t even spoken about [the AI bill], because we want to get through this [national] election now.”
Pelosi did not address her daughter’s theorized bid for Congress during the KQED interview.
Todd David, a longtime adviser to Wiener, said it’s incomprehensible that Pelosi’s pushback against the AI bill wasn’t a political calculation to gather support for her daughter’s possible bid for Congress.
“It’s explicitly a move to get Andreessen Horowitz and Google to fund an independent expenditure committee for Christine,” David said. “The motivation is, from where I sit, a political motivation. Not a policy motivation.”
David pointed to other recent moves by the speaker emerita that he suspects are a way for her daughter to solidify a potential run. They include recent endorsements of progressives Dean Preston and Connie Chan in supervisors races in San Francisco, a group that David believes could present another potential source of support for Christine Pelosi.
“It is this interesting coalition of tech libertarian and a lefty-labor coalition,” he said. “It is an interesting play. I think they’ll try to do that.”
Asked to weigh in on the fracas, Wiener cited support for his AI bill from figures in the tech community, including attorney and open-source advocate Lawrence Lessig and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Behind the scenes, billionaire Ron Conway, who’s considered an ally of Pelosi, lobbied hard against the bill.
“With Congress gridlocked on tech policy — with the exception of banning Tik Tok, Congress has not passed any major tech regulation since the floppy disk era — it’s up to California to act,” Wiener wrote in a statement to The Standard.
Wiener’s bill passed a second reading in the Senate on Thursday. Gov. Gavin Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto the legislation.
At the San Francisco Democratic Party board’s meeting, Christine Pelosi’s turn to speak at the podium finally arrived.
She thanked the local party for supporting her selection to the Democratic National Committee in the spring. That put her in a position to defend Harris’ right to appear on every ticket in Alabama and Ohio, where, she said, Republicans are “fooling around on the ballot.”
Then Christine Pelosi did address her run — but not the one you’d think.
“I’m embarking on my next campaign, and I wanted to come here and ask for your support,” she said. The brief pause that followed saw some of the assembled Democrats lean in with bated breath, as if in anticipation that she would reveal a bid for her mother’s seat.
She continued, “I will be running for Democratic National Committee executive board, and I hope to have your support.”
The room applauded.
When The Standard approached her to ask when her next campaign would debut — you know, the one everyone’s speculating about? — she chided the timing of the discussion.
The vice president has a historic campaign to win, Pelosi said. And like every Democrat, she’s focusing exclusively on ensuring Harris is in the White House for years to come.