The fact that the pale-yellow walls remain bare suggests that Pelosi has no intention of getting settled in her new offices. What drives her these days is the realization that, with the party’s upset victory in last month’s special election in a heavily Republican Upstate New York district, Democrats need just two dozen seats to take back their majority.

“I feel comfortable about our ability to win it back,” Pelosi said in an interview, as she approached the six-month mark of being in the minority again. “I have a sense of responsibility to win it back, a plan to do so, and a confidence that it is very much possible to do so.”…

Democrats say privately that if she can’t deliver the majority back next year, Pelosi’s days as leader are probably over. And even if she does, they may decide it is time for a team of fresher faces. At the beginning of this congressional session, 19 of her Democratic colleagues delivered a symbolic rebuke by voting against her for speaker…

What makes Pelosi different is not that she lost that cherished gavel — but that she didn’t head for the exit when she did. Pelosi is the first former speaker since Sam Rayburn, more than half a century ago, to remain in the House as the head of her party and to fight to get her majority back.

She calls it her “faith-based initiative,” and it is indeed an endeavor to make her fellow Democrats believe again.