Τhe Golden Dream

California knows it's a state in crisis-its leaders know, its residents know, the rest of the country knows. But how it got here-and whether the way out is any kind of model to follow-nobody can agree on

- By Joe Hagan. Photographs by Tim Davis

SHE ARRIVES, QUEENLIKE, in a designer Italian overcoat, high collar, and sunglasses, lipstick smile at once warm and fixed. An aide guides her by the elbow, security detail in tow, to the dining room of Pier 23, an old-school San Francisco tavern in the Embarcadero with a stuffed marlin on the wall and a multistory cruise ship idling outside. Two work men in dayglow safety coats crane their necks from the bar to see Nancy Pelosi, Madam Speaker, doyenne of San Francisco, bête noire of the right.

Pelosi removes her shades and requests a bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce on top. “A lot of chocolate,” she orders.

I ask her if she’s been briefed on the subject of today’s interview. Her press man told her I was writing “about California,” she says with a knowing twinkle, “and how magnificent it is, and how it is the leader in the world.”

Yes. And no.

Once in a while, an East Coast journalist will come out to California to find out what’s happening in the land of dreams. As Los Angeles goes, so goes the nation; if San Francisco loses its charm, what then? “It’s what’s coming next for you,” Pelosi says, portentously.

Earlier that afternoon, I’d walked through the Tenderloin and seen drug addicts splayed out on street corners and a hundred human tragedies strewn across UN Plaza, City Hall looming helplessly in the background. Dickens meets Dante. “Oh, it’s sad,” Pelosi remarks. “It’s worse now.”