Attorney and activist Christine Pelosi is the author of Campaign Boot Camp 2.0: Basic Training for Candidates, Staffers, Volunteers, and Nonprofits. Before participating in a panel in Sacramento on the speed of democracy in the 21st century, she expressed her love (and her daughter’s) for mermaids and explained the point at which she reached her peak as a dancer.
Q. If you could be any animal, what would you be?
A. A human. I already am! But I suppose if I had to be an animal, in honor of my daughter I would be a mermaid.
Q. What’s your favorite thing about Sacramento?
A. All the Democrats in charge. Making wonderful social justice policy for the future of our state. And the Sacramento Kings.
Q. What do you choose to eat for your last meal?
A. I hope I don’t have to plan it! But if you told me I would never eat again-I was going on a liquid diet and I had to give up all solids-then I would have a combination of Lucca Delicatessen’s ravioli and Goat Hill Pizza meatball sandwiches with a nice bottle of Chianti Rufino.
Q. How would you describe your dancing style-in one word or one sentence?
A. At its peak on my wedding night.
Q. Do you have a favorite Disney princess?
A. Ariel. She’s very strong-willed, and she acts the least princess-y of all the Disney princesses to date because she actually saves the prince. And convinces her father to allow her to transform herself.
Q. Are you a night owl or a morning person?
A. I think I’m a night owl, and my toddler thinks I’m a morning person.
Q. Have you ever had a nemesis?
A. I would say my personal nemesis has always been … hesitation before jumping into the unknown. You can add the pause in there too.
Q. What’s your guilty pleasure?
A. Probably my nighttime soap operas. The Good Wife, Downton Abbey. I tried watching Scandal, but it was such a flashback to the Edwards trial that it was a little too much pseudo-reality.
Q. What book have you read the most times?
A. Campaign Bootcamp 2.0. I have to read my own work to know what it is. Other than that, the Bible.
Q. What’s your first memory?
A. My first memory is being in New York City, as a very small toddler, trying to walk on my sister’s romper stompers, which were yellow barrels upside down with a green plastic leash running through each one. You put your feet on them, balance it with the leash, and then try to walk. And so my earliest memory is literally physically looking down at my feet on the stompers, and my father is in sort of a blurry haze, and my father and my mother are saying, “You’re waking us up.”
*Photo by Andolina Photography.