4--The Longest Week
If the tax and budget fight of 1991 were the longest, most contentious and most demanding eight months of Robert P. Casey’s tenure as Governor…and in the context of his public endeavors, I believe they were…the five days he spent in New York City for the Democratic National Convention in 1992 would probably rank as a very close second. In retrospect, that shouldn’t have been surprising.
Political tensions between Governor Casey and the presumptive Democratic nominee, Arkansas Governor William Jefferson Clinton, had been building long before the Democrats gathered in New York City. It broke in the public arena with a crack Casey made to J. W. Apple, the New York Times chief political reporter, in a telephone interview before the April, 1992 Pennsylvania
Presidential Primary Election. Apple had called to ask Casey how Clinton would fare in Pennsylvania. Casey, never a big Clinton fan, called him “a blip” on the political radar screen with no pockets of organized or deep support in the Commonwealth. The Times played the story Page One. The Clinton people read it. They didn’t forget it…
By the time of the 1992 Democratic national convention…Slick Wily” (as he was dubbed by the Arkansas press corps) had the nomination in hand, and after eight years of Ronald Reagan and four years of George Herbert Walker Bush, winning the White House…not character…was paramount to national Democratic leaders. That may say as much about them as it does about Clinton.
Casey had been at odds with those very same leaders for some time now over the issue of abortion on demand. His steadfast opposition to abortion had been aired any number of times in any number of public forums. The proposition was fundamental for Casey: Abortion was wrong morally; it was wrong as public policy; and for the Democratic Party, it was wrong politically because it was a direct contradiction with the rich tradition of the Democratic Party in speaking out forcefully in defense of the underprivileged, the oppressed and the defenseless. And who, he reasoned, was more defenseless than the unborn child. It wasn’t a question the National Democratic Party wanted to be asked; and it wasn’t a question that they wanted to have to answer…certainly not at the coronation of their next presidential nominee.
Casey had asked for an opportunity to speak to the convention on the subject of abortion in a number ways, mostly private, prior to his arrival in New York. Democratic Party leaders were having none of it. They simply refused to acknowledge the requests. Once he hit the Big Apple, Casey was determined to fix it so that they couldn’t ignore him any longer…He was going to send a letter to Convention Chair Ann Richards, the Governor of Texas and a strong pro-abortion voice in the Party, asking again, this time in a public way, for an opportunity to address the delegates. He schedule a press conference for the first thing Monday morning to make the letter public. A Democratic governor from a major state warring with his party at its national convention on the emotional issue of abortion was NEWS by any definition.
Casey’s insistence in pressing the abortion issue didn’t sit well with the Pennsylvania delegates. His rupture with the Clinton people and the National Party leadership already had a price to it. The hotel accommodations at the New York Sheraton where the delegation was assigned were modest at best. In addition, the delegation was seated in a balcony position in Madison Square Garden, the convention hall, far removed from the floor and center of activity. And now the Governor was going to rub even more salt into the wound by pressing ahead with his anti-abortion rhetoric.
Casey held his first press conference of the week at the appointed hour Monday morning. It was packed. The Governor publicly repeated his request to the convention leadership for an opportunity to speak, and chided the alleged party of inclusion for shutting out the chief executive of a major political state. The press conference made some first-day news. Some national correspondents called for interviews. The Governor was booked on C-Span for later that week. National Public Radio scheduled him for a live interview after the opening evening speeches. (Unfortunately, he never made it on the air until well after 1 a.m. because the opening Keynote speeches by U.S. Senator Bill Bradley--of basketball fame--and former U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan--of Nixon impeachment fame—ran on interminably.)
His run of bad luck persisted with the Democratic Party leadership, as well. The convention parliamentarian wrote him a perfunctory letter denying him for the first time on the record the opportunity to speak. The stated reason: Convention rules stipulated that only those who were pledged to support the nominee of the party could address the assembled delegates. Casey was clearly at odds with the presumptive nominee and party platform plank on abortion. Request denied…
The Governor held still another press conference repeating his request to speak on the abortion issue before the platform vote. Whether the reporters were tired of this same song from the Governor, or whether their true philosophical leanings on abortion were coming to the fore, I can’t say. But I do know the session soon deteriorated into a literal shouting match between the press corps and Casey. He reprimanded them for showing their biases on the subject; they, in the way they posed their questions, chastised him for being so intransigent and single issue. It wasn’t a press conference; it was almost hand-to-hand combat…
Later that day, Ross Perot announced he was dropping his independent race for president. Casey and abortion instantly were old news in New York. Perot was a hot political commodity; his third party candidacy was getting a lot of attention from the punditry. His withdrawal put a new dynamic on the 1992 presidential contest against incumbent Republican George Bush. (Perot eventually reversed himself, re-entered the race and may, in fact, have cost President Bush his re-election that year.) But for that day, Perot’s greatest value was to wipe Casey and his anger off the evening news that night…
What follows is admittedly editorial…let’s be honest about that. The opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. But they accurately reflect the impressions I formed in observing first hand the proceedings of the Democratic National Convention in New York City in 1992. They did not leave a good taste in my mouth about my chosen political party, the direction it was taking and the people who were leading it.
For Robert P. Casey, Governor of Pennsylvania, this was not a convention; it was more like a siege. For Mrs. Casey, too, since she invariably accompanied her husband to his press conferences and his public appearances in the Convention Center. Every time the Governor appeared in public to press his case on the abortion issue and for the opportunity to speak to the delegates, feminist activists from the Pennsylvania delegation were there to register their displeasure and their disdain. Not so much in words, but by the contorted expressions of disapproval on their faces and their body language.
These women were self-proclaimed defenders of free speech, inclusion and compassion. But their definition of free speech and inclusion applied only for those who agreed with them on all matters feminist, abortion prime among them. It was my first personal and up close encounter with their philosophical hypocrisy. A number of them had a hand in a serious affront to the Governor and Roman Catholic Democrats in advance of the convention. They had manufactured campaign button size pins with a head shot of Casey imposed on the body and religious garb of Pope John Paul II. The buttons were to sell at $5 each, supposedly to defer convention expenses they might incur. The buttons were beyond the pale of proprietary, political or otherwise. Yet when the organizers came under the justifiable criticism they did from Pennsylvania clergy across a wide range of religious affiliations, their response was: “Lighten up, everybody. It was just meant in jest.” I never saw the buttons in New York. But the bad manners of this group of “ladies,” using the term generously, should not be forgotten and should be condemned once more. Consider it done.
Convention organizers went out of their way to embarrass the Governor, as well. The night the platform with its abortion-on-demand plank was adopted—the plank Casey wanted to oppose in his request to address the convention—Casey was surrounded in his convention seat by placard waiving feminists and their “We’re pro-choice” signs. It was a scene ready made for pictures, and the news photographers and television cameramen flocked like lemmings to record it. To his credit, Casey smiled that dignified Irish smile of his throughout. He wasn’t about to give these zealots the satisfaction of showing any discomfort by their presence around him. Another outrageous example of bad manners and total intolerance from the abortion-on-demand crowd. The Governor had to be seething inside, but he was not about to sink to their level. Score one for him on the dignity meter.
The ultimate indignity came in the speeches leading up to the adoption of the platform with its abortion plank. Among the speakers was a pro-abortion woman from Hershey, Pa., by the name of Kathy Taylor. Not only was Kathy Taylor pro-abortion; she also was a Republican. She, in fact, was a principal surrogate for Republican gubernatorial candidate Barbara Hafer in Casey’s 1990 re-election campaign. Nothing epitomized the rigid, lock-step approach of the Democratic Party leadership and their complete sell out on the abortion issue than the appearance of Kathy Taylor before the Democratic National Convention. In their world, National Democratic Party leaders would not allow the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania to address the Presidential Nominating Convention of his party because he differed with them on the issue of abortion. But a Republican woman from Hershey, Pennsylvania, could because she did not. Nothing was so premeditatedly designed by convention organizers to publicly slap Casey and other pro-life Democrats in a national forum than the Kathy Taylor appearance.
I could understand the slights convention organizers rained down on Casey—the second rate hotel for the Pennsylvania delegation; the seating in Madison Square Garden far removed from the convention podium and the television cameras; the affronts on his repeated requests to speak. As the Governor was fond of saying: “Politics is a contact sport. It’s not a place for the faint of heart.” He challenged the Party and its presumptive nominee. There was going to be a price to pay for that. But what I could not accept then…and cannot accept now…was the rank hypocrisy of the Democratic leadership and the interest groups which drove them. This convention and this party were run by a bunch of brownshirts who would have been right at home in Hitler’s Germany. I grew up in a Democratic Party framed in the rich and noble tradition of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. This was not the party I knew. I saw the direction it was taking, and the people who were leading it there. I didn’t like what I saw. If this was how the Democratic Party was going to conduct itself under the stewardship of Bill Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, I wanted no part of it. A decade-plus later, I still feel the same way. I still resent the influence of so-called Clinton Democrats on the national Democratic Party, and the style of deceptive, disingenuous politics they practice. I am puzzled that so few others do, as well. Me, and my solitary voice and vote, well…I’ll still take Harry Truman any day.
As confrontational as the week was, Casey had his moments of good exposure. A national C-Span interview went well. On his way out of the studio, he was greeted by former California Governor Jerry Brown, himself an outcast of the Clintonites for the aggressive campaign he waged against the nominee in several presidential primaries across the country. “They should let you speak,” Brown told Casey as they passed each other. “You, too,” Casey replied. The newspaper, Newsday, invited Casey to write a piece for their op-ed page entitled, “What I would have told the Democratic Convention if I were permitted to speak.” He took them up on their invitation…
Casey may have been shunned, insulted, harassed and ignored by his party. But he may, in fact, have received more exposure by its refusal to let him speak than he would have received by allotting him some time. 10 minutes in non prime time, before what undoubtedly would have been virtually an empty hall, would have settled the issue of fairness. The Governor’s admonition would have gone unheard and unnoticed. In fact, the media reports probably would have focused on the fact that the Governor insisted on being heard, yet when he spoke no one came to listen. He might have been embarrassed. As it was, he left New York with his dignity in tact and his reputation enhanced. Twelve Minnesota delegates wearing Casey for President buttons over the slogan, “We want our party back,” cast their ballots for him during the presidential nominating vote. Those votes will remain forever on the record as a part of the Democratic National Convention of 1992. I suspect the support of the Minnesota delegates also were of great comfort and solace to the Governor for the very difficult week he had endured. As for me…well, I just left town on the first train out of New York the morning after the presidential and vice presidential acceptance speeches. I dropped my materials off at the office in the Capitol and headed home. That afternoon, I played a solo round of golf. The next morning, Toni, the kids and I headed for a week’s vacation at the Delaware shore. I can’t recall ever needing or appreciating time to decompress more.