A Democrat for Life
JR., JOHN J. DIIULIO
A Democrat for Life Robert Casey, 1932-2000. BY JOHN J. DIIULIO JR. "WHY ARE YOU Still a Democrat?" My favorite two-word answer to that question is "Bob Casey," the remarkable former governor of...
...For me it is a simple step in logic: If government has a duty to protect the powerless, then who among us is the most powerless, the most defenseless, the most voiceless...
...From then on, he introduced himself as "the real Bob Casey...
...Casey, however, did not go quietly...
...Supreme Court upheld the 24-hour waiting period for abortions that he had signed into state law...
...I was in the lumber business," he joked...
...The press, meanwhile, was writing him off as the "Three-Time Loss from Holy Cross...
...To me," Casey later reflected, "it was simply a case of anti-Catholic bigotry...
...Well, almost...
...But Casey never quit...
...He was just the type of person that our parents and nuns wanted us to become...
...who went on to become mayor and, now, chairman of the Democratic National Committee...
...But his popularity betrayed him when in 1978 he lost his third Democratic primary for governor, partly because of confusion with another Bob Casey, a Pittsburgh schoolteacher, also running for office...
...The son of a coal miner, Casey married his childhood sweetheart, Ellen Harding, stayed in Scranton, raised 4 sons and 4 daughters in a one-bathroom house, and bounced 28 grandchildren on his knee...
...Again, he was counted out, but after a miraculous recovery and six-month leave from office, he returned to finish his term...
...The answer, which Casey hated to admit, was that the party had lost not only its Reagan Democrats but its very soul...
...My favorite two-word answer to that question is "Bob Casey," the remarkable former governor of Pennsylvania who died last Tuesday at the age of 68...
...He beat her by over a million votes and went on to put the finishing touches on a policy legacy that includes lower insurance premiums for average citizens, state budget surpluses, and one of the best programs ever for medically needy low-income children...
...To deepen the insult, the Clintonites lent the podium to a prochoice Republican from Pennsylvania...
...and he won a close general election against the son of former Republican governor William Scranton...
...What had become of the Democratic party I once knew...
...Casey was everything we were taught to hold dear in my working-class family in Philadelphia...
...Up for reelection in 1990, Casey faced moderate Republican Barbara Hafer, who called him a "rednecked Irishman" and made fun of his culturally conservative, staunchly pro-life views...
...In 1993, suffering from a rare hereditary disease called familial amyloidosis, he underwent a 13-hour operation to replace his heart and liver...
...He passed up a tryout with the Philadelphia Phillies ("Spike" was a hell of a catcher) for a basketball scholarship to Holy Cross, where he warmed the team's bench...
...Casey came to national prominence in 1992...
...Many campaign experts have opined that if Casey had bent on abortion ever so slightly, he could have been president in 1992...
...Also in 1992, despite his having won the biggest electoral landslide of any governor in the country in 1990, and the next year having helped elect a Democrat, Harris Wofford, to the U.S...
...That year the U.S...
...In the 1986 primary, he defeated Ed Rendell, the Philadelphia D.A...
...What was going on here...
...Help should come first from family, friends, neighbors, and churches, but then, if necessary, and as common sense and compassion dictate, from government...
...He loved to quote former vice president Hubert Humphrey on the civic mission of Democrats: to help "those in the dawn of life, those in the shadow of life, and those in the twilight of life...
...Let me state directly," he wrote in his 1996 autobiography, "abortion is the ultimate violence...
...The answer is children...
...Senate seat vacated when John Heinz died, the Clintonites denied him an opportunity to address the Democratic convention...
...He became the state's auditor general (1969-77) by chasing generations of patronage hacks out of Har-risburg and soon was one of the most popular politicians in the state's history...
...Casey always fought to protect the little guy, and to him that meant everyone from unemployed coal miners to unborn children...
...He excelled in school and in sports, too...
...After getting his law degree from George Washington University, he came home and entered public service...
...In 1997 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and for the last two years he was plagued by debilitating, life-threatening infections...
...In 1987 Casey had a heart attack...
...Pro-choice activists at the convention sold buttons depicting Casey as the pope...
...John J. DiIulio Jr., a contributing editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, was a member of Bob Casey's presidential exploratory committee in 1995...
...But that "condition contrary to fact" (a favorite Caseyism) was morally and hence politically impossible for him...
...It had become dominated by men and women who would not know the kind of principled compassion that Casey lived out if they read about it in their overnight polls...
Vol. 5 • June 2000 • No. 37
