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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781555918323 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Fulcrum Publishing |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2009 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 804 KB |
About the Author
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Confessions of a Political Spouse
By James Schroeder
Fulcrum Publishing
Copyright © 2009 James SchroederAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-55591-832-3
CHAPTER 1
Denver, Colorado, September 28, 1987
The Democratic campaign will be duller if, by September 1, Mrs. Schroeder concludes that the dough is just not there. She stands out from the other candidates for reasons other than the obvious one.
— The Economist, August 27, 1987
They say — whoever "they" are — that all bad novels start out with that classic line "It was a dark and stormy night ..." This is not a novel but a work of nonfiction, and I hope it will be a good one. So let me start out with something different: "It was a bright and sunny day ..."
It was a bright and sunny day, one of those perfect fall days that Denverites love and have come to expect: a bright blue sky, warm temperatures, low humidity, and a light breeze along the Front Range, where dashes of gold aspen intermingled with dark green pines below snowcapped peaks.
Thousands of people, along with hundreds of reporters and media personnel from all over the country, were gathered around the Greek amphitheater in Denver's Civic Center Park, located between the Denver City and County Building and the Colorado State Capitol. They had come to learn whether Denver's eight-term congresswoman and my wife, Pat Schroeder, would formally enter the race for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination.
Other women had run for president, or at least had had their names placed in nomination. The first woman to run for president, as a candidate of the Equal Rights Party, was Victoria Woodhull, in 1872. She was followed by Belva Lockwood, also a candidate of the Equal Rights Party, in 1884. In later years, several other minor parties nominated women candidates. The first woman to have her name placed in nomination by a major political party was Senator Margaret Chase Smith, in 1964. Representative Shirley Chisholm and Representative Patsy Mink ran short, and largely symbolic, campaigns in 1972.
Would Pat's run for the nation's highest office be the first time a woman — and a mother at that — mounted an organized, serious presidential campaign for a major party's nomination?
Pat's exploratory efforts had started in June, almost by chance. As she had done in 1984, Pat began the year as one of Senator Gary Hart's national campaign codirectors. When Gary withdrew from the field in May, after the infamous Donna Rice escapade, many liberal Democrats, including a lot of women, began to look for another candidate. And why not a woman? Why not continue to build on the legacy of Geraldine Ferraro's selection as Walter Mondale's vice-presidential running mate in 1984?
I was working in my law firm's Bangkok office in early June of 1987 when my partner showed me a copy of USA Today. "Well, I guess your wife has been busy while you were gone," he said. I picked up the paper and there was her picture and the headline "Pat Schroeder considering running for President." It's amazing, the trouble your wife can get into when you leave town for a few weeks!
When I returned to Washington, I found that Pat was serious; she wanted to explore the possibility of running, to test the waters, to see if there was the necessary political and financial support for her candidacy. Could she — could a woman — be a viable national candidate?
We formed an exploratory committee and set up operations in several vacant offices in my law firm's Washington building, on Seventeenth Street. I told my firm I would be taking a leave of absence for the rest of the summer. Our goal was to raise $2 million by September and see what kind of support we could develop. As Pat said, "No dough, no go." We needed sufficient funds to run something other than a symbolic campaign and prove Pat was a credible candidate.
I remember running into Congressman Bob Matsui in an elevator at the Rayburn House Office Building. When he asked me how things were going, I said we were trying to raise $2 million by September. He laughed and said, "I'm thinking about running for the Senate from California, and I'm trying to raise $6 million."
Pat's efforts were serious, and she was a potentially formidable candidate. In January 1987, the LA Times published a poll showing how Democratic presidential hopefuls rated among delegates to the California Democratic Convention. At that time, thirteen names were included. Pat was "regarded favorably" by 63 percent of those polled and was fourth overall; she followed New York governor Mario Cuomo, Gary Hart, and Jesse Jackson. By June, Governor Cuomo had decided not to run and Hart had dropped out.
During the summer, Pat's exploratory efforts generated extensive press coverage and many enthusiastic supporters, especially among women. The press loved Pat — she was energetic, attractive, quick-witted, and talked common sense on tough issues. After seven years of Reagan's "me first" era of ever larger debt and federal government inaction and inefficiency, Pat called for "a rendezvous with reality." It became, for many in the media, a contest featuring Snow White (Pat) and the Seven Dwarfs: Senators Al Gore (D-TN), Joe Biden (D-DE), and Paul Simon (D-IL); Governors Mike Dukakis (D-MA) and Bruce Babbitt (D-AZ); Representative Dick Gebhardt (D-MO); and Jesse Jackson.
The respected Field (California) Poll sampled almost four hundred registered Democratic voters between July 24 and August 1 as to their preferences in this eight-candidate field. Governor Dukakis and Reverend Jackson were virtually tied as the first pick, but Pat ran a surprising third.
Although Pat was not a declared candidate, I was invited to attend a spouses debate in Wisconsin. When I couldn't make it, Hattie Babbitt, Bruce's wife, announced that "Jim Schroeder was unable to attend because he couldn't decide what to wear." (Hattie and Bruce are good friends of ours, and Hattie and I always laugh about this "gender discrimination.")
Money was the problem. By September we had raised almost $1 million, a tidy sum to be sure, and all small grassroots contributions, but it was only half of our stated goal. "The mother's milk of politics" had flowed, but not enough. I later marveled at Governor Howard Dean's use of the Internet and wondered, "What if?" If we'd had such a tool in 1987, things might have gone differently.
As we were getting ready to fly back to Denver in September for Pat's announcement, I wrote her a personal memo in longhand urging her to do what she wanted to do and what she felt was right. I think that she knew, and I knew, that the realistic course was not to run. The practical and financial barriers were just too great.
Then, on Friday, I received three calls. First, Lou Harris, the pollster, called and advised that Pat was running third in his polling, trailing only Dukakis and Jackson. He said he thought her support was solid and she could maintain and improve that position if she stayed in the race. Second, the director of an independent oil and gas operators' group called from Dallas and reported that his members were ready to support Pat, a westerner who was both knowledgeable and supportive of their interests. Third, the former state Democratic Party chairman of New Hampshire called and said he was ready to head up Pat's campaign in that key primary state.
So I rewrote the conclusion to my memo: "Pat, it's still up to you, but I think you can do it, and should do it."
This was not, however, her 1972 congressional race, run in a limited district. We were, after all, looking at a presidential campaign, held throughout the entire United States. Pat's political judgment has always been one of her greatest assets, and this time, her head prevailed over her heart. On that bright, sunny September Colorado morning, she announced she would not formally enter the 1988 presidential race.
As she spoke to the assembled crowd — her family, friends, supporters, many women accompanied by their daughters — Pat's voice broke and tears filled her eyes. She quickly recovered, but a picture of Pat with her head on my shoulder is the one that most newspapers ran the next day.
Pat was roundly criticized for crying, especially by some women reporters. Since Senator Ed Muskie had wept at a press conference in 1972 over published attacks against his wife, it had become an axiom of American politics that a politician could not cry in public. And now, a woman was doing it, seeming to confirm that women were too soft, not strong enough to be Commander in Chief and leader of the Free World. Pat's reply to that criticism: "Do you want someone with his — or her — finger on the nuclear red button who does not cry?"
In later years, Pat kept a file on the many male politicians who shed a few tears in public. It was a large file, and included President Reagan and Senator Bob Dole, among others. The numbers continue to grow, and now include President H. W. Bush and House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner. There still appears to be a double standard, however. A woman politician who cries in public does so at her peril. Hillary Clinton's teary response to a voter's question in New Hampshire drew a lot of criticism; on the flip side, it may have helped her primary campaign, because she showed a softer, more emotional side.
How would Pat have done if she had stayed in the presidential race? Newsweek did a poll of likely voters that fall of 1987, comparing certain "positive qualities" of the average male Democratic candidates and Pat. Of the nine categories, she led in eight, often by ten to fifteen percentage points. For example, as "someone you would be proud to have as President," Pat's percentage deviation was a plus 15 percent; as "someone you can trust," it was a plus 11 percent; as someone who "cares about the average American," a plus 9 percent; and as a "strong and decisive leader," a plus 4 percent. Her only negative was "experience to be President," a minus 2 percent.
What kind of experience a person has had, and the value and importance of that experience, is often in the eye of the beholder. Witness Governor Sarah Palin. On the other hand, Senator Clinton based her presidential campaign, at least initially, on her experience. Remember the red telephone and the 3:00 am phone call?
Although she once disavowed any resemblance to Tammy Wynette, Hillary did "stand by her man" during the Lewinsky affair. And Bill stood by Hillary throughout her 2008 presidential campaign, and would have been a terrific First Man if Hillary had become our first woman president. As for me, I love Tammy Wynette and was proud to stand by my woman. I was glad to be able to stand alongside Pat, and in the words of another song, give her a shoulder to cry on.
CHAPTER 2This Guy Schroeder
— Title of 1970 campaign brochure for Colorado State House of Representatives
Science tells us that 50 percent of a child's development depends on the gene pool, and 50 percent on socioeconomic environmental factors. Imagine planting corn. Is the seed a good hybrid, disease resistant, planted in rich, black soil? Or is it a weak, deficient seed, scattered on rocky, sandy ground? Will the seed — and the young plant — receive adequate sun and water, or suffer from drought or flood? Will the young plant receive fertilizer and pesticides, or be engulfed by weeds and become the victim of worms, bugs, and locusts? Will the final product be a golden ear of healthy corn, or a disappointing stock of shrunken and inedible produce? Much depends on the farmer, his initial choices, and then on his subsequent care and skills. But he must also cope with and attempt to control — or even overcome — the outside forces of nature.
Heredity and environment. What we started with. What forces and experiences affect us. Chance and choice.
I was born on April 19, 1936, into an upper middle-class home in the affluent Chicago suburb of Elmhurst, Illinois. My mother, Thelma, a schoolteacher and graduate of the University of Chicago, was a Bible Belt Christian raised on a farm outside Charleston, Illinois. Her father, Zaccheus Boone White, my grandfather, was a special person: tall, distinguished, an excellent farmer, and a devout Christian. He served as Sunday school superintendent of the Harrison Street Church of God for fifty years. The Church of God was a Protestant evangelical denomination founded in the 1800s, and it was strongly antislavery. Granddad Zach's father, Isaac, and his father, Silas, were both ordained ministers in the Church of God. Silas White married Mary J. Boone, a grandniece of the famous Kentuckian Daniel Boone, hence my Granddad Zach's middle name. My great-great grandfather on my grandmother's side, George Sandoe, was also a minister, and chaplain of the 123rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Civil War. The Illinois 123rd was one of Grant's most dependable regiments and fought with distinction at Perryville, Kentucky, and Chattanooga and Chickamauga, Tennessee. I have framed a letter that he wrote my great-great grandmother Josephine when the 123rd was with Sherman outside Atlanta in July 1864.
My father, Paul, was a dentist, a graduate of the University of Louisville, and the only one of five children to attend college. He worked his way through dental school by playing the violin in an orchestra that worked on riverboats cruising the Ohio. My German grandfather, Fredrick Wilhelm Schroeder, came from Semlow, Pomerania, in northeastern Germany. After immigrating to the United States in the 1880s and marrying my German grandmother, Minnie, my grandfather Schroeder, a tailor, established a men's clothing store in Woodstock, Illinois.
I never knew my paternal grandfather, as he died before my parents were married. I think, however, that he passed along some pretty good German genes: order, discipline, hard work, religious belief, family values, patriotism. Three of his sons, including my father, served in the US Army in World War I. His oldest son, Emil — the only other child to marry — had a son, Bob, who served in the US Navy in World War II and Korea, and two daughters, Bea and Ruth, who were nurses during World War II. After the war, my cousin, Dr. Ruth, became one of the first women to graduate from Harvard Medical School.
I never knew my grandmother White, who also passed away before my parents were married. She was, according to all reports, a remarkable woman, the "Martha Stewart" of Charleston, who catered local dinner parties for Eastern Illinois State Teachers College professors and their guests, earning extra money to help put my mother through college.
My mother, a devout Christian and daughter of downstate Illinois soil, was the primary force in my development. I was raised with love, with a sense of humility and grace toward life, and with tolerance and respect for others. Through my mother's teaching, whatever I did, I did my best, worked hard, didn't quit, and persevered. For example, several times I almost gave up on Scouting, but she wouldn't let me; I became an Eagle Scout because of her constant encouragement and support.
I did give up on the piano my sophomore year in high school so I could play football. My mother said that someday I'd be sorry, but my father said he understood. He loved sports, and I still am a loyal fan of the Chicago Cubs, Bears, and Blackhawks. But I am sorry!
My father also instilled in me the value of hard work, the importance of financial responsibility (he never had a credit card), and the importance of politics. Both my parents contributed to my love of music. One of my fondest memories of growing up was gathering around the phonograph on a Sunday afternoon to listen to an opera or symphony, on a RCA Victor 78 rpm record, no less — scratchy, but beautiful.
* * *
If you'd asked me about women when I was a young kid growing up — and, of course, nobody did — I guess I would have said they were equal to men — fellow human beings, creatures of God — but different. They were special, and merited consideration, courtesy, care — and sometimes, protection. I kept that in mind one day when my baby sister, Sandra, was playing in a sandbox and an older boy threw sand at her. When she started crying, I picked up a stone and threw it at him. My mother was not pleased, and I was told that this was not the right way to help her — but Sandy did stop crying.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Confessions of a Political Spouse by James Schroeder. Copyright © 2009 James Schroeder. Excerpted by permission of Fulcrum Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
1. Introduction,2. Denver, Colorado, September 28, 1987,
3. This Guy Schroeder,
4. Tough, Tender Pat Schroeder,
5. Two Careers: Avoid Competition and Be Prepared to Compromise,
6. Second Place Isn't Bad When Your Wife Is a Winner,
7. My Separate Career,
8. Independence,
9. Observations and Experience,
10. What Do Women Want? Equality of Opportunity and Treatment,
11. May There Be a Generation of Children on the Children of Your Children,
12. I Think Housework Is the Reason Most Women Go to the Office,
13. Women as Friends and Colleagues,
14. Some Additional Thoughts from a Politician's Husband,
15. Political Sensitivity,
16. The Media,
17. "Yes, Dear": The Dennis Thatcher Society,
18. Conclusion,