Pelosi: Clinton Camp Played Gender Card

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Monday that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., hasn't been treated differently because she's the only woman in the presidential race, but added that her campaign appears to have been trying to exploit that perception in the wake of last week's Democratic debate.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told ABCNews.com that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., played the gender card after last week's Democratic debate.

(abc news)

Pelosi, the nation's first female House speaker, told ABCNEWS.com in an interview that she didn't agree with observers who thought Clinton was drawing particular heat because she's a woman.

"[Sen. Clinton] said it best: They're 'piling on' -- or whatever the words were -- 'because I'm the front-runner.' That's why they're piling on," said Pelosi. "If she was in third place, they wouldn't say, 'Let's go attack a woman.'"

Perception Matters

But in distributing a Web video splicing together her opponents' attacks her campaign appears to be exploiting perceptions of Clinton facing down a field of aggressive male challengers, Pelosi said.

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"I think the campaign is trying to take advantage of another -- probably people who didn't even watch the debate, to say, 'Oh, they were really rude,' or something like that, and that has some salience," said Pelosi, who has said she does not plan to endorse a candidate in the Democratic primary. "You know, every vote counts." Last Tuesday's debate in Philadelphia has set off a wide debate over the role of gender in the presidential race.

Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman ever to appear on a major-party presidential ticket, told The New York Times in a story published Monday that Clinton's opponents were "sexist" in their attacks.

"John Edwards, specifically, as well as the press, would never attack Barack Obama for two hours the way they attacked her," said Ferraro, who was Walter Mondale's running mate in the 1984 presidential election.