Guest column

By Dick Rosse
Special to the Coastal Point

Some 20 years after the tumultuous events that split the Democratic Party over the Vietnam War, Gene McCarthy remained embittered over the ruthless way he was handled by the Bobby Kennedy organization.

You could tell he hated the Kennedys nearly as much as he loathed Republicans. When I mentioned this a few days later to Frank Mankiewicz, a long-time friend and advisor to RFK, he said no one ever called running for the presidency a Miss Congeniality contest.

After some additional spleen venting, the conversation segued into Irish poetry. He recited some Yeats, as well as a couple of his own short works. It was a lovely afternoon, there in McCarthy’s spartan D.C. office suite. It would have been lovelier a few blocks away, over a pint at the Dubliner.

McCarthy was a man of great wit, melancholy and cynicism — the total opposite of another failed contender I met during that presidential year, 1988.

Harold Stassen had becoming something of a political joke by the time I reached him by phone at his home in Minnesota. He had run for the Republican presidential nomination 10 times, beginning in 1944. His dogged persistence despite impossible odds had made him a ready source of humor for standup comics.

But, earlier, he truly was the “golden boy” of American politics: Minnesota governor at the age of 31. A chief of staff to Admiral “Bull” Halsey in World War II, a formidable presidential candidate in 1948 and, with more primary victories than Dewey, a close second for that year’s nomination.

In 1988, Stassen was 81 and still campaigning for the presidency. His voice at the other end of the line in Minneapolis was strong and friendly. I explained I was preparing a series of programs on Americans who had sought the presidency and would appreciate a few minutes to discuss his life in politics. He said he could be at our studios the following morning, about 10.

I said just a few minutes on the phone would be fine. No, no, he said. He preferred to be there in person. Before I could say it was only a brief radio shot, he had rung off.

The next morning, promptly at 10, Harold Stassen was standing in our reception room, ramrod straight, a big John Glenn kind of smile on his ruddy face, his hand gripping a small, metal overnight case, eager to begin our interview, which ranged the issues of the day.

He made and kept riveting eye contact. He was funny, knowledgeable and consistently “on message.” In a word, he was a hellava guy and, I thought, a superb candidate. I’m sure others who had gotten up close with him felt the same. Except, of course, the party’s king-makers and -breakers. To them, Stassen was an octogenarian joke.

Our one-on-one filled up a 30-minute reel of tape, of which I could only use about a minute and a half, since each program in my series was a pathetic two and a half minutes long. I knew the network higher-ups would have rejected a “Harold Stassen Special” running longer.

Naturally, I couldn’t tell this to my guest. He had come all the way from Minneapolis for what he had hoped would be some helpful national exposure. But I doubt even 30 minutes of Harold Stassen on network radio would have advanced his chances. He was entirely off the radar screen by the time of the election.

But, bowed and unbeaten, he tried again in 1992. He decided to sit out the race in ‘96, although he did offer to run as Bob Dole’s vice presidential choice. Only kidding, he said. At the age of 89, he just wanted to deflect attention from Dole’s advanced years.

I have to say, 16 years after my talk with Harold Stassen, I still don’t know the “why” of the man. You shake your head and wonder why anyone would run for the presidency 10 times and not “get it.”

Similarly, you wonder why otherwise intelligent men such as Gene McCarthy, Ralph Nader, Ross Perot and George Romney would raise their lances on a windmill quest, sans money, sans support, sans anything but the conviction that they have a message that must be heard, that government has been made hostage by the corporations and other special interests, that things in Washington are rotten to the core. Yes — you are tempted to respond — but what else is new?

I suppose otherwise sane American men and women will continue to run for the highest office, heeding the summons of their inner, better selves. We can listen or we can tune out.

Until I met Harold Stassen, I thought political mavericks were just a bunch of eccentric scolds and, therefore, dismissable. Now, I know better. Now, I pay closer attention to these candidates “on the fringe.” Much of what they say needs to be said, and you seldom hear it from the major contenders.

Think, listen and be charitable.

Dick Rossé is a 36-year veteran of the Mutual and NBC radio networks, and for his final dozen years at NBC served as senior news correspondent in Washington, D.C. He currently resides in Dagsboro.