When Democrats achieved an improbable victory last week, with a special-election upset in a Trumpy part of Pennsylvania, the moment called for some bashing of Nancy Pelosi. Such outbreaks happen every so often, like political chicken pox, and this time it was because Democrat Conor Lamb, the winner of that special election, had viewed Pelosi as enough of an albatross to feel compelled to call for “new leadership.” This triggered a fresh round of Pelosi-must-go commentary, which in turn prompted a burst of no-she-shouldn’t commentary. In this world of Pelosiology, we have the ground-level take arguing that Pelosi is bad news and has to go. Then we have the intermediate take countering that she’s actually very good and must stay. Then we have the advanced take positing that she’s actually brilliant and shouldn’t have to go—but might have to anyway. To outdo all of these, I intend to argue that Pelosi, beyond good or bad, dwells in a state of quantum superposition.

But that’s for my magnum opus. For now, I’ll simply go intermediate and submit that Nancy Pelosi, for all her flaws, should stay in charge and become Speaker if (more likely when) the House flips, starting in January of 2019. I admit I could have argued the opposite case, but this stance comes with more wokeness points, plus my quarter came up heads. Also, Pelosi really does get undervalued.

Let’s first summarize the case against Pelosi, which, it must be admitted, grows longer. Pelosi’s strength has never been as a figurehead or spokesperson. Back in 2006, when Pelosi was just hoping to become Speaker of the House one day, Jacob Weisberg was complaining in Slate that, for Pelosi, “a five-minute interview is usually sufficient to exhaust her knowledge on any subject,” causing her to “flop around like a fish.” And she was always liberal with gaffes. Recently, her handling of tricky issues seems to have gotten worse, both on substance and pronouncement. On why the “Patriot Prayer” group should be denied a demonstration permit by the National Park Service: “The Constitution does not say that a person can yell ‘wolf’ in a crowded theater.” On how she felt about Michigan Democrat John Conyers having settled multiple sexual harassment claims from former staffers: “Just because someone is accused—and is it one accusation, is it two? John Conyers is an icon in our country.” After Democrats lost a showdown over extending protections for people brought illegally to the United States as minors—calculating that voters didn’t have their backs—Pelosi gave an eight-hour protest speech, exactly the sort of thing red-state Democrats needed least.

It doesn’t help that Pelosi is rich, that she’s from San Francisco, or that the public mood has turned sharply populist, souring on (among other things) the Bay Area and Big Tech. Nor does it help that she soon turns 78. Many younger Democrats are openly raring to get rid of Pelosi. They argue that Pelosi epitomizes an old guard that ought to make room for clued-in up-and-comers, or non-white ones. But let’s go to the defense. Just as a C.E.O. is hired to run a company, a party leader is hired to lead a party. If that person is good at managing media perceptions, great, but it’s not the main job. Pelosi’s job is to keep her caucus united and effective, and she does it well. Granted, to observe that Pelosi is a skilled tactician has become one of those clichés outside the realm of strict truth or falsity, à la “Obama’s stimulus plan needed to be at least 50 percent bigger.” People say it to sound astute. But the evidence in this case is quite strong. Already in 2005, when becoming House Speaker was still a hope rather than a reality, Pelosi played a central role in torpedoing efforts by George W. Bush to try partially privatizing Social Security. When fellow Democrats asked her when she might release a competing plan of her own, her reliable answer, according to one aide, was, “Never. Does never work for you?” It worked. Bush’s effort was a fiasco.