Denenberg v. Flaherty: Politics after Common Cause
Shapiro, Walter
Denenberg v. Flaherty Politics After Common Cause by Walter Shapiro That hot Friday afternoon in May often introduced himself as “the man politics was all bit invisible in do&town...
...These discussions were such routine fare that whenever either candidate said anything out of the ordinary it was major campaign news...
...The setting was appropriate because Flaherty had the backing of virtually every political organization in the state...
...But Denenberg forgot that he first had to win a Democratic primary, in which liberal activists would play a significant role...
...In a professionally run campaign, advance men would have funneled commuters into an impromptu receiving line to “meet the consumer champion who will represent you in Washington...
...A sidewalk rally in the heart of downtown drew perhaps 30 bored spectators at lunchtime on a sunny day...
...Denenberg was planning to visit Philadelphia’s Suburban Station during the morning rush hour...
...The campaign was now being run by Norm Denenberg, who had come in from his home in Nebraska...
...With the AFL-CIO sumortina SZhweiker (“to prove that we’re not the tail on the Democratic kite”) and most former McGovern activists sitting the primary out, Denenberg was forced to run an insurgent campaign without the support of insurgents...
...For Democrats, the key race in 1974 is not winning Richard Schweiker’s Senate seat which might mean 40 jobs, but reelecting Governor Shapp which means about 40,000...
...Instead, the press should take a more active role, conveying clearly the implications of what the candidates are saying...
...There, at a stop sign at the top of a long hill, Roger stood with a hand-lettered sign, “Meet Herb Denenberg-Your Next Senator,” as the candidate, standing on the white line dividing the highway, shook hands through open car windows...
...it would give some unity to life...
...Denenberg carried virtually everything in the eastern three-fifths of the state...
...A few minutes later we heard Philadelphia’s all-news radio station, broadcast a bona fide Denenberg radio commercial, in which a female voice invoked Ralph Nader and the candidate’s record as insurance commissioner...
...Where Flaherty was well known, he won overwhelmingly...
...Herb Denenberg could easily be described as Pennsylvania’s version of Ralph Nader...
...It’s Pete...
...For two hours the audience of 70, including a bored reporter from The Philadelphia Bulletin, squirmed res tlessly on metal chairs in the function room of a local motel as the four candidates droned on with rambling ill-focused monologues...
...Once I was in WilkesBarre and didn’t have anything to do for a while,” Denenberg recalled, “so I spent $35 and went on the local radio station for a half hour...
...The enthusiasm was infectious, and it demonstrated the personal involvement which can come with politics at the local level, a level of intensity achieved by only the most genuinely charismatic statewide candidates...
...Where Denenberg was remembered from his battles in Harrisburg, the former insurance commissioner rolled up lop-sided margins...
...Although this Bulletin story was factually accurate, merely reporting what the candidates did or didn’t do all day provides readers with little of substance...
...He totally lacked the self-consciousness and the fear of appearing ridiculous that prevents many candidates from being successful and others from enjoying the process...
...At one point he plunged into an empty clothing store where the solitary clerk was talking on the telephone...
...Unlike our earlier impromptu foray into a ghetto market, Denenberg’s mid-morning walking tour of a black slum area was planned in advance...
...Denenberg tried anyway, shouting “How are you...
...Caught in the middle, Denenberg discovered the truth which Muskie learned so painfully in 1972-there is no center in the Democratic Party...
...One doesn’t have to be a Carmine DeSapio to recognize what Pete Flaherty could add to the ticket in a state that is 40 percent Catholic...
...you know, how schools go year round . . . . i t always amazed me how they are the best-looking houses in every community...
...In short, it was a primary that was decided totally on the basis of the candidates’ prior images, rather than by their campaigns...
...A few days later Denenberg would campaign in a Philadelphia Flyers’ jersey, although privately he was appalled at the attention being given the Stanley Cup champions...
...The reporter, rather stunned by the question, could only mumble, “You’re the candidate, Herb...
...Other than his wife, Nancy, Flaherty generally traveled without staff...
...To learn Flaherty’s schedule you had to talk to Nancy Flaherty...
...Keep white liberals out of our community...
...Flaherty uttered banalities on the order of “I don’t think we’re getting leadership from either one of our U. S. Senators...
...Nothing in...
...The Great Debates The Flaherty-Denenberg primary was certainly not the only political race this year without grand themes or lively clashes over the issues...
...Around five o’clock, we found ourselves on a busy ghetto corner where passengers alighting from the subway were forced to run a gauntlet of “end of the world” preachers, black separatist pamphleteers, and Herb Denenberg...
...Will It Play in Pottstown...
...But the press never forced them to explain how this was relevant to life in the U. S. Senate...
...At times there appeared to be no logic to his campaigning on the airwaves, other than the allure of its low cost...
...How come that isn’t significant...
...Side-stepping these controversial questions and focusing on populist economics probably would be a sound strategy for opposing Senator Schweiker in November, especially since the Republican incumbent’s own opposition to gun control was a major factor in his defeat of Senator Joe Clark in 1968...
...In a way, Denenberg’s dilemma was like that of the hero of The 39 Steps who was pursued by both Scotland Yard and the foreign spies he was trying to unmask...
...For example, the door to the BellevueStratford suite that was serving as his Philadelphia headquarters was locked at four o’clock in the afternoon, just 10 days before the primary...
...No, we don’t want a riot”), and a moment later the four of us were inside a corner market under a sign that promised “Fresh Hog Maws at All Times...
...The car stopped, tactics were discussed (“Should we bring the bullhorn...
...The message inherent in a primary like this should make some campaign reformers pause...
...Denenberg and Flaherty said the predictablethey were both against inflation and the giant oil companies and in favor of congressional reform and closing tax loopholes...
...That afternoon Denenberg limited himself to hand-shaking and dispensing buttons bearing his slogan when he was insurance commissioner“Populus Iamdudum Defutatus Est,” roughly translated, “the public has been screwed long enough.’’ Although the candidate was generaily not recognized, Denenberg’s name was quickly identified and a few people even thanked him for saving them money on their insurance...
...But iristead, here’s the way a typical day went: It began at six in the morning in the lobby of the Pottstown Holiday Inn with someone’s sleepy murmur, “ITl bet H. R. Haldeman didn’t start like this...
...A few minutes later Denenberg regrouped his tattered forces, by now bolstered by a few local supporters, and the mayor of Pottstown, at the intersection of Industrial Highway and Firestone Boulevard...
...But the campaign’s lack of substance was significant because it occurred despite the implementation of some of the favorite nostrums of campaign reformers...
...Instead the candidate entered the station alone...
...Quigley received 33,000 votes-9,000 more than Flaherty’s margin over Denenberg...
...Escorted by the leaders of a local community group, Denenberg toured streets almost devoid of human life...
...Clearly, here was politics stripped to its bare essentials, here was politics reduced to the candidates alone...
...There was only one problem-this was a plant where the workers drive rather than walk through the gate...
...Pete Flaherty has been the dominant political figure in western Pennsylvania since he was elected mayor of Pittsburgh in 1969...
...Denenberg doted on the press, Flaherty ignored it...
...Roger, his only aide, was trying desperately to find a parking space in downtown Philadelphia...
...In their understandable reaction to the excesses of Richard Nixon’s television campaigns, reformers put a premium on personal voter contact...
...Specifics about “Herby’s” campaign were not Norm’s strong suit, but I did learn that the decision to place a major emphasis on radio was based on the advice of “professional media people...
...In this race both candidates dwelled almost exclusively on their accomplishments in local and state office...
...Campaign coverage is traditionally obsessed with the details of the political process-who’s endorsing whom, what the machine is doing, and which candidate has momentum...
...Typical was a Saturday morning meeting in King of Prussia called by the chairmen of the four suburban Philadelphia counties...
...Denenberg did produce a number of radio spots, but many of them-including a personal endorsement by Ralph Naderwere never aired because of lack of funds...
...Flaherty not only turned back an organizationbacked challenger in the Democratic primary, but won the Republican and Constitutional Party nominations as well on write-in votes...
...It is widely believed that if television stations were willing to provide free time for political discussions and if the contenders were willing to appear regularly on the same platforms, the cost of campaigning could be significantly reduced while at the same time enhancing voter education...
...What little advertising the candidates could afford was far from skillfully chosen...
...Denenberg promised to “out-Nader Nader” in the Senate, but weren’t his maverick tendencies more suited to an administrative position...
...For most in the audience at King of Prussia, the highlights of the session were the disjointed answers of a minor candidate, Frank Mesaros, an overweight Greek Orthodox priest who seemed to be running on little more than a pledge to return to the state “three Saturdays out of every month if elected...
...The campaign stop was a small craft fair which had attracted more exhibitors than patrons...
...Denenberg, not relishing the idea, cautioned, “Not too much further in...
...After going through a “Should we bother...
...Although Quigley all but abandoned the race when the party machinery lined up behind Flaherty, his presence on the ballot gave some liberals a way of expressing their pique with Denenberg...
...Flaherty tried to achieve name recognition in the Philadelphia area through a series of billboards that simply said, “Pete...
...What made this apathy unusual was that the primary involved two of the state’s best-known-and most unconventional-public officials...
...The Long Count On election night the mood at Denenberg’s headquarters in a Philadelphia hotel-motel complex was celebratory because early returns showed that, contrary to all predictions, the candidate was going to carry the city of Philadelphia by 25,000 votes...
...And Flaherty’s single piece of campaign literature, apparently written by the candidate himself, focused almost entirely on his accomplishments in Pittsburgh, rather than national issues...
...With Denenberg and the legislative candidate seated in an open car, we drove through ghetto streets, as a microphone repeated slogans like “The word is Denenberg...
...A typical one in The Philadelphia Bulletin quoted an Altoona party official: “Flaherty’s very popular here...
...After complaining about the local paper’s scanty coverage of his “great liberal speech” to an ADA dinner the night before, Denenberg checked his watch, glanced at me, and said, “We’re off to do a little campaigning, want to come along...
...Pete Flaherty is going to carry Blair County...
...The candidate, desperate for voter contact, shook the man’s hand, picked up the phone, and said into the receiver, “Hi, I’m Herb Denenberg and I’m running for the Senate...
...Then turning to me, “There’s your story, that is the story you should write-all about the Mickey Mouse mentality of the press...
...By morning it was clear that Flaherty had won narrowly-by a margin of 24,000 votes out of one million cast...
...This scene and the ensuing 15 minutes of awkward conversation was one of the few glimpses I was able to get of Flaherty during the campaign...
...Understanding the returns is easy, if you look at a map of Pennsylvania...
...Flaherty’s money shortage was more a product of his reluctance to raise it...
...The Campaign Press Despite Denenberg’s strenuous efforts to woo reporters, the day generally failed as an exercise in press manipulation...
...As we all sipped Cokes, Denenberg, remembering with horror that he was scheduled to spend another hour amid the desolation of Progress Plaza, turned to the Pittsburgh Press reporter and, asked “Where do you want to go now...
...It’s Pete...
...This too eventually became tedious and soon the party retreated to the formica tables of the local Roy Rogers restaurant...
...As one observer commented, “This is a hell of a campaign for an only child...
...This speech was the last hurrah for the Denenberg campaign...
...Yielding to impulse, Denenberg decided to use these free moments to demonstrate the extent of his black support...
...We then passed a small-town funeral home with its carefully manicured lawn, and the candidate was off in a completely different direction: “I predict in 20 years funeral homes will be used for more than funerals...
...With a three-piece off-the-rack gray suit, glasses, closelycropped red hair and an Omaha twang, Herb Denenberg looked and sounded like a moderately successful Midwestern dentist...
...This upset was due partly to Philadelphia boss Pete Camiel’s decision to distribute almost no election day “vote” money, preferring to save his warchest for his battle with Frank Rizzo...
...Television crews would have been summoned by the promise that Denenberg was going to make a “major statement” on mass transit...
...Who...
...There were five of usDenenberg, Roger Gerst, the faithful driver, Rem Rieder of the Philadelphia Bulletin, Larry Reibstein, a young AP reporter, and myself...
...Often called “the first state insurance commissioner that anyone ever heard of,” Denenberg made the headlines regularly during his three years in Harrisburg...
...In a state of almost 12 million people, it was an opportunity not to be missed, so Denenberg jogged a quick 30 yards for a handshake...
...But unless candidates develop new ways of communicating with voters-and the press, new methods of covering the campaignpolitics may become little more than blindly choosing between names on the ballot...
...Let’s stop here,” he suddenly announced...
...Once back in the car it became apparent that the candidate had time to kill and no real destination...
...Reporters trying to follow Flaherty’s campaign were confronted with an almost Catch-22 situation...
...Yet as the campaign began, Flaherty was virtually unknown east of the Allegheny Mountains...
...Many thought “Pete” was Philadelphia Democratic boss Peter Camiel, who was locked in bitter battle with Mayor Frank Rizzo...
...it’s such a waste to limit them to funerals...
...It was a campaign devoid of special-interes t contributors, bitter personal attacks, unsubstantiated charges, scumlous leaflets, or the machinations of political professionals...
...I expect it to be about 7 to 5.” Not only is this kind of detail of scant interest to most voters, but in this case the prediction turned out to be entirely wrong-Herb Denenberg carried Blair County by the lopsided margin of almost 2 to 1. Trying to capture the campaign’s flavor, many political stories dwelled on such trite themes as Flaherty’s glamour...
...Denenberg then started to wave instead, but the high-powered cars zoomed by anyway...
...The Denenberg entourage consisted of the daughter of a family friend from Omaha and Roger Gerst, the candidate’s 22-yearold driver...
...With little support from groups like doctors, lawyers, and insurance agents, whom he attacked while in Harrisburg, Denenberg had to depend on a trickle of small contributions...
...Other important campaign jobs were also kept in the family...
...Our destination was a huge Firestone plant where, in the time-honored tradition of Democratic politics, the candidate was to greet the workers as a shift changed...
...Flaherty had little appeal for liberals (a Pittsburgh McGovern leader called him “a pretty Nixon”), but former Congressman Jim Quigley did...
...Denenberg blustered, “When I get down to the United States Senate, it will never be the same again...
...Suddenly the candidate saw someone on foot-a company janitor in gray uniform and cap trudging toward the side gate...
...Denenberg was like a bobbing, hand-shaking cork awash in a sea of commuters...
...The Pittsburgh mayor issued only two press releases during the entire campaignone announcing his candidacy, the other giving his plans for a week of campaigning in early May...
...Nor is it enough to just passively list the candidates’ positions on the issues-which was, for example, the sum total of UPI’s primary coverage...
...Flaherty carried every county in the west with the exception of Erie, which he lost narrowly...
...at one point, as the line of cars stretched almost to the horizon, he said with wonder, “Look at all that traffic,” as if the tie-up were the fault of bad highway engineering...
...Denenberg left the craft fair after about 20 minutes when he found himself shaking hands with the same voters for the second time...
...The Pittsburgh Press did note that “there hardly ever seems to be a dull moment” when campaigning with Denenberg, but The Philadelphia Bulletin ran a story which undoubtedly gave the candidate scant comfort...
...at the driver of the first car, only to be drowned out by a burst of acceleration from the custom-fitted twin tailpipes...
...I’m the only candidate in the race who has any written material,” he said, poking a halfdozing reporter, “How come that isn’t news...
...Newspaper coverage of the primary was particularly important because television stations throughout the state made almost no effort to cover the campaign, limiting themselves to studio interviews with the candidates...
...Where Have All the Voters Gone...
...The buoyancy vanished when we passed, going in opposite direction, a sound truck driven by another candidate for state representative...
...For example, The Philadelphia Inquirer headlined a profile of the candidate’s wife, “Nancy Flaherty: Just Like a Kennedy...
...He did hold one fund-raising brunch in Pittsburgh, but many high-level city employees were not even aware of it, let alone shaken down to buy tickets...
...Six weeks before the primary he was discovered alone, wandering aimlessly around the tiny Harrisburg airport, muttering that he thought the state party chairman was supposed to pick him up...
...Other Inquirer stories contained vignettes like this: windows, honked their horns and squealed with delight when Flaherty came through...
...Roger Gerst, the driver, not seeing anyone but a wino on the street, suggested, “Let’s go further in...
...Certain issues, however, did play an important role in the campaign, demonstrating that the schisms which ruptured the Democratic party in 1972 have not disappeared...
...The lead conveyed its tone: “Herbert S. Denenberg spent a long day on the campaign trail in the Philadelphia area yesterday, but until late in the afternoon he found audiences hard to come by...
...Did Flaherty, for example, want to lead a crusade to trim the size of the federal bureaucracy by 20 per cent...
...The enthusiasm was fanned by the returns from affluent Philadelphia suburbs like Bucks County, where Denenberg was getting over 75 per cent of the vote...
...You should have stayed out of local races...
...and gun control (“a cosmetic solution...
...There was a languor about Flaherty’s campaign that was rare for a candidate with serious opposition...
...Congressional campaign reformers want to limit spending in Pennsylvania primaries to about $650,000 per candidate...
...Denenberg relied on radio to translate his statewide popularity into primary votes...
...My wife,” said Norm...
...A major event on the afternoon schedule was a visit to Progress Plaza, the first black-owned shopping center in the country...
...These are the kind of questions that the press failed to explore in the Senate primary, even though this is precisely what the voters needed to make an intelligent decision...
...Two weeks earlier almost all the paid staff had quit after losing a power struggle to the Denenberg family...
...the press accounts of the campaign gave any clues as to what prompted one million Pennsylvanians to go to the polls in the Democratic primary or what made them vote the way they did...
...The day went downhill from here...
...As he tried to both introduce himself and distribute his campaign literature, the candidate kept looking plaintively for help from his personal press corps, now bolstered by the arrival of the political editor of The Pittsburgh Press...
...Quigley won the endorsement of the Pittsburgh ADA, ex-Senator Clark, and reform groups in a few liberal wards of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia...
...Denenberg’s money problems stemmed from an inability to raise it...
...Running as “nobody’s boy” against both the Democratic machine and a well-heeled Republican opponent, he became the first Pittsburgh mayor in years not beholden to the Mellons and the Scaifes...
...Only ten days remained before the May 21 Democratic Senate primary that would be decided by just two percentage points, but the volunteers on the street were collecting for the Children’s Hospital and the cruising soundtruck was heralding the opening of a Rolling Stones’ movie...
...There he made a speech to the partially non-Englishspeaking audience that mostly involved the exciting news that his wife, Naomi, was Russian...
...Although this was his first political race, Denenberg was a surprisingly good campaigner...
...It’s there that the organization Democrats traditionally gather on election night, and it was there that Pete Flaherty had his Philadelphia headquarters...
...A few handshakes, a few puzzled looks from the customers, and the ghetto tour was completed...
...Two days later, two million gathered in roughly the same spot to greet the Philadelphia Flyers...
...Choosing between two mavericks was not easy for machine Democrats...
...The Pittsburgh mayor shuffled through the campaign, appearing at party dinners and going on desultory hand-shaking tours...
...who brought Herb Denenberg to Harrisburg...
...No, just a block or two,” promised Roger...
...The center is in financial trouble, as Herb Denenberg discovered when he tried to find shoppers to greet...
...Seeing Denenberg campaigning with his opponent, he began to shout into his own microphone, “Herb Denenberg, you will be buried...
...Denenberg’s brothers were also the largest single contributors to his campaign...
...Here was a campaign that followed all the rules of post-Watergate politics, but here was also a campaign that didn’t affect any voters...
...routine with his aides, Denenberg went off to greet perhaps 30 potential primary voters in a state with 2.8 million registered Democrats...
...When not recounting the candidates’ day, the press often ran some variant of a prediction story...
...Flaherty’s wife, Nancy, handled his scheduling, while Denenberg delegated this responsibility to his sister, Helen...
...Although the passion was borrowed, things finally appeared to be going right for the Denenberg campaign...
...Taking the long way back to headquarters, we found ourselves on the periphery of one of Philadelphia’s ghetto areas...
...It paid off when he ran for reelection in 1973...
...He was chatting with his wife, Nancy, and a political crony, and the three of them looked like they had been sitting there since early afternoon and had nothing to do until dinner...
...As Omaha Goes...
...When Flaherty walked into the county tax office to perform the meet-’n-greet ritual, one woman looked up from her desk and People in Greensburg waved from office grinned in recognition, “Well-1-1, look who’ here...
...According to one former staff member, Norm had the rather disconcerting habit of saying “Omaha” when he meant Philadelphia, as in “let Flaherty carry Pittsburgh, we’re going to win Omaha big...
...I knocked, the door opened, and there was the candidate, his tie loose, his jacket off and his feet up...
...The problem is that most candidates do not have the rhetorical abilities of a Kennedy or a Nixon, let alone a Lincoln or a Douglas...
...Denenberg v. Flaherty Politics After Common Cause by Walter Shapiro That hot Friday afternoon in May often introduced himself as “the man politics was all bit invisible in do&town Philadelphia...
...Without money, volunteers, union support or organization backing, Denenberg had to campaign in such a way that would generate vast amounts of favorable attention in the press...
...It now seems possible that, in the name of campaign reform, the money, the television spots, the bands, the bunting and the hoopla may be permanently excised from our politics...
...This victory was eked out from the late returns from Allegheny County and the rest of the Pittsburgh area, which Flaherty carried by a better than 2-to- 1 margin...
...Denenberg seemed not to notice that he was causing a massive traffic jam...
...That’s why the press regarded Denenberg’s pro forma charge earlier in the campaign that Flaherty should resign as mayor to run for the Senate as though it were a major issue...
...After a morning of persistent calling failed to get any answer at the Philadelphia headquarters of either candidate, I finally located the Denenberg command post on two floors of a downtown loft...
...It was about then that Herb Denenberg arrived fresh from a local television studio...
...There was also no money for the political hired guns (the pollsters, campaign consultants, computer geniuses and direct mail specialists) who have be come in dispensable ingredients in “professional” campaigns...
...The party coalesced around the Pittsburgh mayor for reasons that had far less to do with Flaherty’s virtues, than it did with the make-up of a balanced ticket...
...Encouraged by these early returns, Denenberg was in an effusive mood, so effusive, in fact, that he crashed a Ukrainian convention being held in the adjoining hotel ballroom...
...The fine print which explained who “Pete” was and what he was running for was totally indecipherable to motorists driving by at 55 miles per hour...
...Why not...
...It was a choice between “backing a candidate who wouldn’t return your phone calls [Flaherty] and one who would tell you to go to hell [Denenberg],” explained one insider...
...Denenberg, Flaherty and the two minor candidates regularly appeared together on television and at various party functions...
...We will support Pete Flaherty...
...Both candidates relied on their brothers to manage their campaigns...
...Pursuing a dogged independence that often antagonized liberals and community groups, Flaherty reduced taxes through such economies as trimming the city bureaucracy by 20 per cent...
...Unlike most big-city mayors, Flaherty has never assembled a network of large contributors-or ever really has seen the need to do so...
...Shapp, who like Denenberg is both Jewish and from the Philadelphia area, has antagonized a number of ethnic Democrats with his liberal stands on abortion, capital punishment and pornography...
...The Organization Man The Bellevue-Stratford is the political hotel in Philadelphia...
...In theory this is laudable, but an afternoon campaigning with Herb Denenberg began to illustrate the difficulties of putting it into practice...
...The Pennsylvania primary could have been used to answer an important question generally ignored by campaign reformers: if you place an explicit or de facto limit on campaign spending and political advertising, how do voters form their images of candidates and campaign issues...
...l k s Senate primary can be seen as a test of some of the themes beginning to characterize post-Watergate politics...
...capital punishment (he favored it “as a deterrent” for certain “heinous” crimes...
...To find Nancy Flaherty, you had to already know the schedule, since she was invariably traveling with her husband...
...have weddings and birthdays there too...
...Denenberg, obviously pleased, said, “That was my sister-in-law, some voice, huh...
...Suddenly Denenberg was joined by a honking, exuberant, 18-car motorcade organized for a state representative candidate...
...Driving through morning rush-hour traffic toward Philadelphia, Denenberg returned to his favorite topicthe failure of the press to cover the primary properly...
...But most importantly, it was a race where costs were so low that both candidates deserved good conduct medals from Common Cause...
...But this focus on what the party professionals think is happening totally neglects to explore the impact the campaign is really having on the average voters...
...We will bury you...
...By all accounts there was not much to the Flaherty campaign to miss...
...Thanks to the publication of 26 shoppers’ guides, rating everything from life insurance to dentists, Denenberg’s statewide popularity grew to such an extent that Governor Milton Shapp Walter Shapiro is an editor of The Washington Monthly...
...Ed Muskie discovered in 1972 that there are only two dependable sources of campaign workers in a Democratic primary-liberal activists and the unions...
...Whenever the candidate did find a hand to shake, the reporters, in the best tradition of pack journalism, would immediately surround the hapless voter to interrogate him on his views of the campaign...
...Although clearly to the left of Flaherty, Denenberg failed to attract the support of many former McGovern activists because of his unacceptable positions on the largely cultural issues that define liberal orthodoxy-abortion (“if pressed, if harassed,” he’d support a constitutional amendment to limit it...
...It looked like the perfect site for a grassroots campaign -all that was missing were the cadres of volunteers...
...Denenberg and Flaherty spent less than one-tenth of that, about $60,000 apiece...
...At one point things got so bad that Denenberg, only half in jest, invited an audience to throw quarters at his feet to help pay for his campaign...
Vol. 6 • July 1974 • No. 5
