WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a California liberal, easily won election yesterday as leader of minority House Democrats and swiftly set a goal of crafting a "down the center" program for economic growth.

"Hopefully, we can find a great deal of common ground with Republicans" across a range of issues, said the 62-year-old, a veteran of 15 years in Congress. "But where not, we will put up the fight."

With her victory, Pelosi became the first woman leader of either party in Congress. "I've been waiting over 200 years," she quipped, but the triumph, when it came, was an easy one. She defeated Rep. Harold Ford Jr. of Tennessee on a vote of 177-29.

Pelosi takes the helm of a party that has been out of power in the House for eight years, and suffered a dispiriting loss of seats in last week's elections. She succeeds Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, who stepped down after four terms as minority leader.

In the run-up to the leadership election, Pelosi's Democratic critics had said her liberal brand of politics could pose a problem for a party struggling to regain a majority. But she moved to blunt such criticism in the hours before her election, appointing Rep. John Spratt, a South Carolina moderate with experience in military and budget issues, as her assistant.

And on Wednesday night, she was among a minority of the Democratic rank and file to vote in favor of legislation creating a Department of Homeland Security, a measure that drew criticism from organized labor.