Mario Cuomo's reflection on his epic speech: 'Nothing brilliant in it, but all of it was real'
Posted Jan 2, 2015
By Sean Kirst | skirst@syracuse.com
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New York Gov. Mario Cuomo gestures while delivering the keynote address to the Democratic National Convention Monday, July 22, 1984 in San Francisco's Moscone Center.
(File art | The Associated Press)
Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York, died on New Year's Day, at 82. Just over 10 years ago, during the 2004 Democratic Convention, Cuomo - a familiar visitor to Central New York - recalled the making and delivery of his keynote speech before the Democrats in 1984, a speech that many scholars on political discourse in America rank among the greatest of all time. Cuomo offered these thoughts two days before another Democrat, Barack Obama, commanded national attention with his own keynote address:
Kerry in strong need of fire
Cuomo brought in 1984
The Post-Standard
Sean Kirst, columnist
Mario Cuomo took a phone call not long ago at his Manhattan law office. A close adviser to John Kerry, the all-but-official Democratic nominee for president, wanted to talk about Kerry's upcoming speech at this week's Democratic Convention in Boston.
It has been 20 years since Cuomo, former governor of New York, delivered his famous keynote address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. The speech was immediately perceived both as a statement of purpose for the Democratic Party and as a challenge to Ronald Reagan's vision of America.
Agree with it or not, it is often listed among the great pieces of public oratory in the 20th century.
That was the reason for the call from Kerry's adviser, whose name Cuomo declined to give. The Democrats need a powerful message this week from their convention, and the nation will be watching when Kerry speaks Thursday. While it seemed logical to seek advice from one of the great political orators of recent years, Cuomo may have surprised the caller with his reaction.
"I started laughing," said Cuomo, thinking back on the genesis of his own speech in San Francisco. "It was a speech we didn't want to give. I thought Ted Kennedy should have given it."
Yet Cuomo recalled that he had promised at the time to "do anything that wasn't a sin or a crime" to help Walter Mondale, the Democratic nominee, and Mondale wanted him to make the speech.
In his usual manner, Cuomo wrote the speech himself. Then he read it to his son Andrew and Tim Russert, moderator of "Meet the Press," who in those years was a counselor to Cuomo. Neither of them saw it as especially powerful. Cuomo, being Cuomo, stuck to his own words, which he offered on the same night as a convention address by former President Jimmy Carter.
Off-stage, Carter offered this warning about the crowd: "They're not paying attention."
A few minutes later, Cuomo fixed that problem.
He began his speech by challenging Reagan's assertion that America "was a shining city on a hill." The nation, Cuomo told the audience, was rapidly becoming a "tale of two cities," and then he set out to make his case.
He spoke of unemployed steelworkers in Lackawanna, near Buffalo, one of two references he made to the Upstate region. He spoke of the homeless in the shelters of Chicago. He spoke of his own father, an immigrant who worked so hard that "I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet" and how Cuomo's parents taught him that democracy translates into an "obligation to each other."
"We believe," said Cuomo, speaking for the Democrats, "in a government strong enough to use the words 'love' and 'compassion' and smart enough to convert our noblest aspirations into practical realities."
Looking back, Cuomo can remember the growing sense of communion with a crowd that erupted in applause 43 times.
"There was nothing brilliant in it, but all of it was real," he said. "Nothing took them from where they were and brought them to a higher place. What I was saying, they were feeling. There were some things I felt about this country (that challenged how) Mr. Reagan was saying we were all a shining city, and they said, 'Yeah, that's right, ' and you could see them start nodding."
As he reflected on the speech, Cuomo described the sheer pleasure of seamless oratory, a lost art in this age of sound bites and commercials. He noted how "the best speeches of all are when you leave the page and just riff," those times when a speech is almost a kind of jazz.
"After a while it was like talking to the guys," Cuomo said of his speech in 1984. "A bunch of you in the 188th Street tavern, and all the guys there listening, they're talking to me, and they're listening to me and they're just like me. ... Then I get to Poppa and I say, 'Look, I saw this poor little man bleed from the bottoms of his feet,' and you could see people, now they're crying and talking, and they're putting their arms around each other's shoulders and that was it: the magnificent coincidence between what I was saying and what they were feeling."
Magnificent coincidence. Somehow Kerry - no great speaker - must find a way to at least approach the same thing Thursday night. Cuomo has a suggestion. It would involve taking a risk, but Cuomo maintains the gamble would pay off.
"I think (if I were Kerry) I'd say something like this," Cuomo said. "I'd look at the American people ... this big audience, and I'd say, "Let me tell you a little bit about myself in a hurry. I love my country, and it's done a lot for me. Truth be told, it's done more for me than it's done for many people. I loved it so much I volunteered to fight for my country in Vietnam.
"But the hardest thing I did wasn't to volunteer to fight for my country. The hardest thing I ever did was to volunteer to kill for my country, and I did, and I came back with such a terrible sense of disenchantment because I felt I killed in a war we should not be in. And I swore to myself, for the rest of my life, I would not allow a war in which people killed and died unless it was clear beyond a reasonable doubt that it was a war to kill for.
"And Iraq, certainly at the time we invaded, was not a war to kill for."
From there, in last week's interview, Cuomo took off. He kept his impromptu speech going for another five minutes, using fierce words that tumbled from his head, praising the courage of young soldiers while lamenting the "grotesque mistakes" of politicians who rush them into war.
You realized, with no preparation at all, how this old lion in New York remains capable of creating a spirited manifesto for the Democrats, which is exactly what their nominee must do at this convention.
That leaves just one drama for Boston: Is Kerry up to it?
Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Post-Standard.