Will Pelosi Stay or Will She Go? Perhaps a Little Bit of Both.
When Congresswoman Maxine Waters was elected to Congress in 2004, she was hailed as the anti-establishment candidate who would rid Washington of the stifling influence of big corporations and financial interests. The first year was filled with promises, some of which were kept, some of which were not. Then, when the economy tanked, Waters promised the country that she would get the economy going again. It was clear that she was no longer the anti-establishment candidate but the anti-economic candidate.
Fast-forward to today, when she is running for her fifth term as California’s 40th congressional district representative. It’s the same district she has represented for nearly 17 years. Although the district is no longer the home of the “Clinton District”, it has become the district of the “Waters district,” thanks to Waters.
It must be said that Waters did not start her career in the halls of Congress as some might have anticipated. She began her career working for the Washington D.C. office of an insurance company and eventually rose through the ranks from receptionist to vice president of that company. And she never let her real “job” get in the way of being the boss’s wife and mother of four. She also rose to a level of senior vice president of the company where she was also a director until she stepped down to run in 1998.
But for Waters, it was as much about power and control. She and her husband, Joe Dinkins, ran their daughter’s Washington D.C. company with her as their chief marketing officer. And they had an open relationship that they used as the foundation of their power couple’s relationship.
There is a lot of good news and a lot of bad news in Waters’ political career. She was one of the few members of Congress to join in a filibuster in the Senate to protest President Bush’s war on Iraq. In 2006, when the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives and the state of California, both of which were in Republican
