THEY were the odd couple of the 2000 presidential campaign: George W Bush, the then stumbling Republican candidate from Texas, and Alexandra Pelosi, a liberal twentysomething television producer from California whose mother Nancy just happened to be a powerful Democratic congresswoman.

They could hardly have been more different in ideology and outlook, but something clicked between Bush and the younger Pelosi, who was filming the candidate’s every move with a hand-held video camera.

The result was a television documentary, Journeys with George, that revealed a little-known side of Bush — his boyish humour and knack for charming his political critics. Six years later the Bush and Pelosi show has returned to tantalise Washington in a new and historic form.

Nancy Pelosi’s emergence as Speaker elect of the lower house of Congress has presented Bush with an intriguing family twist as he tries to avert the disintegration of his presidency. Can he charm the mother as he did the daughter?

In Washington last week the question was on every analyst’s lips: can the conservative Republican president find enough middle ground to co-operate with a liberal San Francisco Democrat who not only opposes the war in Iraq but also supports abortion, gay rights, stem cell research and just about everything else that Bush’s right-wing supporters hate?

Numerous pundits declared that Bush and Pelosi were doomed to an abrasive collision that would ultimately paralyse American government. “She’s not going to abandon her principles and I’m not going to abandon mine,” Bush warned.

Yet other sources noted that behind the liberal caricature that Republicans have attempted to pin on Pelosi lies a shrewd operator who has confounded accusations that she is an ideological shrew out of touch with mainstream America.

Several Democrats recalled that conservative Republicans were jubilant when Pelosi became the party’s leader in Congress in 2004. “Go Nancy,” declared Ed Rogers, a Republican lobbyist who believed it would be easy to portray Pelosi to voters as liberal soft on war and drugs.

In fact Pelosi had learnt at an early age the value of getting to know constituents and of forging political alliances. The daughter of a former mayor of Baltimore, she grew up in an Italian-American household seething with political activity.

Moving to California with Paul Pelosi, her banker husband, she had five children and did not run for office until she was 46. Although she took on her constituents’ liberal views, her rise through the ranks reflected mainly her fundraising skills.

She proved adept at uniting her colleagues after Senator John Kerry’s 2004 presidential defeat. During her two years as leader, the party has voted together 87% of the time, its highest rate for 50 years. In the same period she supported Bush’s measures only 16% of the time.

Despite her reputation as a ruthless arm-twister, she has softened her image by emphasising her role as a mother and a grandmother. She has a weakness for chocolate and sometimes wears a sweatshirt with the slogan, “Hand over the chocolate and nobody will get hurt”.

Her success left Bush with little choice but to mount a charm offensive when he entertained her to lunch last week, but will the honeymoon last? Like most odd couples, Bush and Pelosi need each other more than either may care to admit. The Bush presidency will wither without congressional support. Yet the Democrats’ success could prove short-lived if they fail to co-operate with the president and have no legislative successes to offer in 2008.

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