LOOKING BOTH WAYS!

By Edwin Cooney

The very first thing a parent teaches a little one when it’s time to learn how to cross a street is the importance of looking both ways.  Since every day possesses a yesterday and a tomorrow, looking both ways is essential for adults as they seek to navigate an ever-changing world.

    

The New Years Day death of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo caused my mind to play over our political past and speculate a bit about our political future.

For Democrats during the 1980s, Mario Cuomo was the shining star of liberalism.  Unapologetic about liberalism’s past or potential for the future, his articulation of its accomplishments and its potential lifted the hopes of delegates attending the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. By 1984, speakers who electrified major party conventions occasionally found themselves elevated to the top of their party’s national ticket. Jesse Jackson, who also electrified Democratic delegates at that very same convention, enthusiastically sought the presidency.  Then, without warning or fanfare, Governor Cuomo threw Democrats a curve they weren’t expecting.  He absolutely refused to run for president!  Why he wouldn’t run he would never say.  Some, myself included, wondered if he feared ethnic smears. Perhaps he wanted to avoid public controversy with the Catholic church. 

William Jennings Bryan in 1896, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1924 electrified their conventions and, sometimes sooner rather than later, found their way to the top of the greasy pole of American politics — as Barack Obama would do in 2004.  Hungry for articulate and dedicated leadership, we Democrats kept wondering:  why won’t Cuomo run?  Why not?  Last week at his public wake, Mario Cuomo’s son, Governor Andrew Cuomo, told us why.  It was very simple: “He didn’t want to!”  So, he simply didn’t run.  It’s amazing when you think about who runs and who  doesn’t run for president!  Insofar as I know, only one president really and truly didn’t want the office.  William Howard Taft wanted Theodore Roosevelt to appoint him to the Supreme Court.  Instead, TR granted Mrs. Taft her wish and supported her reluctant husband for president in 1908.  Of course, once he was elected he fought TR himself to keep the office in 1912, and eventually President Warren Harding gave Taft his wish in 1921 by appointing him Chief Justice of the United States.  That appointment inspired a little boy to say to Chief Justice Taft when he spotted him descending the steps of the Supreme Court building one day during the mid-1920s:  “Oh, I know who you are, you used to be President Coolidge!”

As I think about who has and hasn’t been elected president over the past nearly 226 years that the American presidency has existed, it is fascinating to realize that only 43 Americans to this date have been elected President of the United States of America.  Even more amazing, since the Battle of Hastings of 1066 which brought the Normans to the British throne thus ushering in the modern British state, only 42 Britons have served as King or Queen of England.  (Note: my list includes Queen Matilda, 1141, and Lady Jane Grey,  the nine day queen of July 1553, which many lists do not include.  Thus we’ve had more presidents in 225 plus years than Britain has had royal sovereigns over the past 948 years.)

Looking ahead, as I think about our past and its ramifications, I find myself invariably wondering what it all means and even to what degree it all matters.  Since I believe it does matter who we elect as our president, the question I ask myself has to be: What might we have lost or gained had Mario Cuomo been compelled to run?  Here’s still another irony.  Had the Democratic party not made the reforms it did during the late 1960s and early 1970s when it stripped the party bosses of much of their power, those very bosses may well have drafted Mario Cuomo whether or not he agreed.  In that instance, he would have been forced to issue the statement supposedly made by General William T. Sherman of “Marching through Georgia” fame: “If nominated, I will not run.  If elected, I shall not serve!”  I’ll leave it to you to decide whether Mario Cuomo would have equaled Sherman.

As 2016 approaches, Republicans and Democrats are wondering if January 20, 2017 will see the inauguration of another Bush or another Clinton thus continuing another American political dynasty.  Whatever happens, you can be sure of two things: first, the next Mario Cuomo is a long way off.  Second, much sooner than you can imagine, the President of the United States will be someone you never thought was likely to be elected.  Just in case you doubt that prediction, how long before 2008 did you predict the election of Barack Obama?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY