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From KQED.

Thank you. From KQED in San Francisco, this is Forum.

I'm Rachel Myro in for Alexis Madrigal.

What's it like to have a ringside seat to history in the making?

John A. Lawrence got to find out during his tenure as Chief of Staff to House Speaker Nancy

Pelosi.

He wrote a book about it called Ark of Power.

How much power does the representative from San Francisco actually have in that hot seat?

How has she exercised that power? And what impact has she had on the Democratic Party in America?

Also, we'll talk about the attack this morning on her home and husband in San Francisco.

We start the conversation.

Welcome to Forum. I'm Rachel Myro in for Alexis Madrigal. The speaker of the House of Representatives is going to be a political lightning rod no matter who she is, most especially during elections. And if we're talking about the House, that's every two years, so more or less all the time. Nancy Pelosi has been the bogey woman. Republicans love to hate

for more than a decade, some Democrats, too. In his new book, Ark of Power, John A. Lawrence

...