FROM PRESS RELEASES TO BOOK WRITING, VINCE CAROCCI REFLECTS ON HIS CAPITOL JOURNEY
Although somewhat painfully, Vincent P. Carocci is living proof of the axiom: When one door closes, another opens.
The Camp Hill man was the government-relations director for the State System of Higher Education in 1986 and was meeting with Chancellor James McCormick when Gov.-elect Bob Casey called him. McCormick told Carocci he should take the call. So, the former Associated Press and Philadelphia Inquirer reporter darted out of the room expecting an invitation to work for the Casey administration. Carocci wasn't expecting his boss to trail him. But he did - until the door to Carocci's office slammed in the chancellor's face. Carocci's new book, A Capitol Journey: Reflections on the Press, Politics and the Making of Public Policy in Pennsylvania (http://www.vincecarocci.com), shares many stories like this. It does not reveal, however, what Casey, or any of the six governors he worked for or covered as a reporter, really thought about their adversaries.
"I never intended the book to be an expose," he said during a telephone interview Wednesday. "By design, I didn't want to hang out dirty linen."Anyway, to "get the dirt" in this book would shock most people who know the Scranton native. Instilled with the value of family by his mom and dad - Sophie and Roy - and ingrained with the Casey credo to work for others' best interests not your own, Carocci makes few personal observations about events and people. When he does, he apologetically warns readers of what he's about to do. In the book's fourth chapter, "Reader Beware: Editorial Comment to Follow," Carocci expresses his dismay for the direction the fourth estate is headed. "I'm sorry. I just can't resist," he writes. "If you accept my notion that the primary purpose of news reporting should be to inform society, then you should mourn along with me the diminishment of the newspaper as society's primary information source." Starting in 1961 as an AP reporter, Carocci's career spanned four decades and six governors and his book offers reflections on each. He also writes about the senators who left their impression on him (Franklin Kury, H. Craig Lewis and Vince Fumo), as well as the grizzled journalists who influenced him. Of the governors, Carocci said William Scranton impressed him with his people skills. "One on one, he was the best governor I ever saw in interacting with people, no matter their station in life," he writes. "He had Bill Clinton charm without the smarm." But Casey left the biggest mark. He still calls him "governor." "I respected everybody who served in the governor's office from whatever vantage point I had," he said. "He, clearly, was the one I was most comfortable serving with." Carocci started in the Casey administration as its deputy secretary of legislative affairs. He became the governor's press secretary in 1989, replacing Bob Grotevant. Carocci said if the book accomplishes anything, he hopes it helps future governors and their aids deal with reporters' medical, political and personal inquiries as they relate to health, i.e. the events leading up to Casey's 1993 heart-liver transplant. He writes that he was taken-aback by the initial questions and admonished those scribes who sounded as if they were guessing. But reflecting on the events that lead to Casey's risky operation, Carocci said there seemed to be purpose in how the governor handled his health and how he handled inquiring minds. "I didn't realize it at the time, but that thing could have gone the other way very easily at any number of points in the process," he said. If he had it to do over, Carocci said he'd do nothing differently. Except, maybe, do something differently to avoid the 1991 "Budget from Hell." "That would have been nice," he chuckled.
Despite his years of serving as the Casey administration's mouthpiece and a liaison for the state Senate and the State System of Higher Education, he said he still considers himself a journalist. "What's striking to me? When I came here and started to work with people like John Scotzin and Duke Kaminski and Lindy Lindgren in the newsroom, and they would start telling stories about Gov. Fine and Gov. Duff, I always thought, 'Boy, you guys have been around a long time'. And now, here I am telling stories about Bill Scranton Sr. and David Lawrence," he said. Carocci isn't done with his new endeavor. He says he's working on another book, this one about a high school basketball coach, and plans to be in the State Bookstore at 11 a.m. June 7 to sign copies of his tome.