After Pelosi: A San Francisco race "that shall not be named"

Some clues to Ms. Pelosi’s future may be found closer to her home in San Francisco — where the tantalizing possibility of the city’s first open congressional seat since the fall of the Soviet Union has become the political talk of the town.

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Would-be candidates, labor leaders, political strategists, donors and activists are already busily plotting what a race to succeed her would look like — albeit almost entirely in secret, to avoid antagonizing Ms. Pelosi, who has made plain she wants to retire on her own terms.

“This is very much the campaign that shall not be named,” Dan Newman, a San Francisco-based Democratic operative, said of the early jostling. “Nancy Pelosi is a force of nature, and no one wants to appear in any way disrespectful or dismissive.”

In interviews, more than a dozen officials said local Democrats were preparing for the possibility that Ms. Pelosi could resign rather than stay and hand the gavel to a Republican. That would trigger a snap special election in San Francisco, held within 150 days — a sprint for what, given the city’s politics, could amount to a de facto lifetime appointment to Congress.

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