YouSaid · the spoken record

Abner Mikva

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78
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2016-04-11
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2016-04-11
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  1. “And he was supporting McCarthy, but the rest of us were very unenthusiastic. And so... And I remember the big problem with Hubert Humphrey, who was a wonderful man and a great liberal and very much against the war privately, is that he would not.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Absolutely. And McCarthy, as far as many of us were concerned, was a phony. Al Lowenstein was then running for his first term as a contractor.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “That had become my single most important issue. By the time 68 rolled around, the divisions about the war were tops, front and center on everything in this country. It divided generations, it divided families, it divided parties, and I was, I think I was I may have been 40. And as far as I was concerned, it was an awful war. We should never have been in it. And I was a champion of the anti-war.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “June, and the convention was in July and August, or August. We were still pining for Kennedy and not comfortable about who could possibly win the 68 election. McGovern was making noises, but he didn't run. And as I said, a lot of us were not comfortable with Gene McCarthy. We like Hubert Humphrey, but he was determined to be loyal to.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “It was very painful time to be a Democrat. We had just gone through the assassination of Dr. King, which had upset the city and all the big cities very much, including the South Side. We'd had riots and fires and all kinds of things. And then Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. And McCarthy was supposedly running against Johnson, but a lot of us weren't enthusiastic about McCarthy. This is Gene McCarthy. And Bobby Kennedy gave the younger people in the party a great deal of hope. I don't think I was a delegate in 68, but I had floor access, and so I was spending a lot of time on the floor trying. Oh, I just have to go back a little bit. As you remember, Kennedy was assassinated.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Democratic machine. So when I came up north, a lot of my constituents had preceded me. But even so I lost the first election, I won the primary, but I lost the general election in'72. And this was the first Nixon re-election year. And I lost by several thousand votes, even though I ran well ahead of Nixon.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “The south side of Chicago. And I remember it was going on even in my 70 campaign when my volunteers would go out. This was never campaigning for my re-election. And they take the precinct sheets, which had the names of the last set of voters on them. And they ring a doorbell in South Shore and they say, Mr. Goldberg, and they're this big black band say, no, my name's Smith. And it was true of all the preseques that the Jews and the Irish had left and they were replaced by blacks. Well, in a Democratic general election, that didn't matter. But in the primaries it mattered a lot because most of the black population were very much beholden to the organization.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Well, it wasn't easy, but on the other hand, there were parts of it that were going on that people didn't really realize As far as the Affluence of the district at the time I left the south side of Chicago, we were either the first or second poorest districts in the country. And the 10th district on the North Shore was one of the most affluent districts of the country. So there's no question that those issues on welfare and on the safety net and so on that were my stock and trade on the south side just didn't fit the North Shore except that the white flight had already started and was well underway and an awful lot of south shore had moved up to Evanston and from”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “You bet. And a lot of other people objected, and we were able to defeat it. And as far as the mayor was concerned, in 72, when there was time for reapportionment, mysteriously my deceit got divided into three parts. One was that I lived in, was given to Ralph Metcalfe, a well-known star, and 90% African-American The middle part was which was south shore and went all the way west, was given over to an incumbent Democrat. And the district was about It was a safe Democratic district. It was about 80% anti Black because it extended all the way into the west part of the city. And then the third piece, the suburban piece, was given over to a very popular Republican who called me and said, I'd be happy if you run against me. I said, that number won't be. Anyway, I moved up to Evanston.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “And all the bonds, the delinquent bonds on the Skyway started rising in value mysteriously. And it didn't take much inquiry to find out that there was a plan afoot and that insiders knew about it. And I objected.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Indirectly, and I would not do them, and I incurred his ire. One of them was he wanted to build an airport in the lake, and I was opposed to that. He wanted to help US Steel put a new steel mill in the lake, and I opposed that. He wanted to increase sales tax for Chicago, and I voted against that. While I was in the legislature, it wasn't enough to try to unseat me. But when I ran for Congress and got elected, any of the issues that there was a... Word on that I didn't go along with I always let it to be known that the mayor was not happy. I remember one of the issues was they were proposing to get the federal government to take over the Skyway, the Chicago Skyway. That's the role.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “And he thought that hair was too old to be in Congress. So when I went to see him for my visit to tell him I was running, he said, well, good, we're going to stay neutral. And they did, which meant that the award committee men were free to do what they wanted, and two or three of them supported me. I don't know whether I would have won or not, but as it is, without the machine support and the support of some of those that came with me, I ended up beating O'Hara”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “And so it really became a personality contest and I divided many families in Hyde Park, which was the area around the university. I'd have my picture would be in one window and his picture would be in another window because the husband and wife had split on who they were supporting Anyway, I ran against them in 66, and the machine was opposed to me, and he won. Ah, he beat me by several thousand votes in the primary, and when they asked him how he felt, said he felt just like when he'd climbed San Juan Hill. Anyway, two years later, my Ambition hadn't abated at all, but the district was changing and he was two years older. And at that point, Mayor Daly, who was very much a pragmatist, as you know, decided that I would probably win anyway.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “And the incumbent in my district was a man by the name of Barrett O'Hara, who was then 83 or 84 years old. And he was the last Spanish-American war veteran in the Congress. And he was a good liberal Democrat. He voted to abolish the House on American Activities Committee. And I really had no issues with his voting record. He was a little soft about the Vietnam War, but it was just starting up at that point, not starting up, but it wasn't that big an issue. But other than that, we were in pretty much agreement on issues. While I really was running against them because I thought 84 was too old to be in Congress, but that's not something you run and win on, as you know.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Because the state legislative pensions at that time were very, very minimal. I retired after 10 years service with 156 dollars a month. My”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Well, part of it was that we never funded it. The legislature always found that the easiest thing to do was kick the can down the road. And meanwhile, put in all kinds of goodies for state employees. I'm very pro-union and pro-state employee, but we were outraged at some of the things that the legislature did. One of the measures that passed while we were there over Paul's and mine and Tony opposition was a bill that allowed a A state employee to be promoted to a higher job for, I think it was three months, and then they qualified to retire at that higher salary.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Well, one of them was capital punishment. Paul and I had put in a bill to abolish capital punishment my first term, and we couldn't even get it out of committee. And two years ago, the Illinois legislature abolished capital punishment in Illinois.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Now he was incredible. He had never finished high school. And I spoke as a southern Illinoisian, but he was as smart a legislator. I mean, he could stand up with a bill not having read it the first time, and immediately figure out who had helped and who it hurt. And he was an incredibly good but crooked legislator. Adlai Stevenson once said of him that he would be one of the great public servants from Illinois if only didn't think that the shortest distance between two points was a curve.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Simon was Jewish. Yeah, but I told him, I said, Tony Paul isn't Jewish. He's a Lutheran. And Tony said, that's okay. He votes Jewish.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Perry, Paul Simon, and all of us didn't have anybody to answer to except our conscience and our constituency. And so we had a great time. And the votes were always close enough so that our votes counted. And we were known actually we were called by the opposition, the young Turks, but there was a group of us that called ourselves the Kosher Nostra. Because Tony gave us that name”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Well, in those days, it was great because of cumulative voting There were a lot of people there who were independent of a party organization. I served with Paul Simon, who was elected that way, Tony Scariano, who was elected from the South Suburbs as an independent, a woman named Gene Hurley, who later married.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Right. And so we went to, they tattooed and nominate two Democrats because it was a Democratic district. And I ran for one of the seats. And the cumulative voting applied to the primaries as well as to the general election. So I was able to win the seat with about 40% of the vote.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I didn't think of it that way. I learned at that time that if two people other than your wife think you wanted to run for public office, you hear that Clarion call. And we had open seas, the legislature just reapportioned itself, and we had open district. That was at the time we had cumulative voting.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “I have well growing up in Milwaukee where it's a very open party and open procedure so if you walk by the party headquarters some nights you can end up state chairman before the night is over But I was told that if you come to Chicago, you should just forget about politics as a closed operation, machine politics. And I accepted that, but it was 1948 and Hadley Stevenson was running for governor and Paul Douglas was running for the Senate. And they both seemed like really attractive candidates. And one night on the way home from law school, I passed the Eighth Ward Regular Democratic headquarters, Timothy O'Brien Committeeman on the street front window. And I went in and I said, I'd like to volunteer for Stevenson and Douglas, the quintessential of Chicago Ward Committeeman took the cigar out of his mouth and said, who sent you? And I said, nobody sent me. He put the cigar back in and said, we don't want nobody nobody sent. And that was my...”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “But I met my wife. She was going to Chicago, and I met her on a blind date. If I wanted to marry her, I would agree to move to Chicago”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “They played cards together, poker at the White House. Drummond appointed three justices, Burton, Vincent, and Minton. And I think he appointed Tom Clark, too. So that it was really a Truman court, even though he had only one term, well, he had almost two terms as president.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “And if that name doesn't ring a bell with you and most of your audience, understandable. He was a one-term senator. He was elected on Roosevelt's coattails in 1934. He'd been the reason he was selected as a senator was the only downstate Democrat they had in Indiana. So they put him on the ticket and he won and he always knew he was elected on Roosevelt's coattail. So he was a good liberal New Deal Democrat. When he got on the Supreme Court where he was appointed by Harry Truman, he was a very, very conservative justice.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “We were in high school together. He was a sports editor, and I was the editor-in-chief of the high school newspaper. And we've been friends ever since. He went to, we both clerk together at the Supreme Court. Who did you clerk for? I clerked for Sherman Minton, who had been a senator from Indiana.”

    2016-04-11 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 40 - Abner Mikva · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source