YESTERDAY
In 1992, I ran for Congress.
For the better part of that year, I travelled the highways and by-ways of what was then New York's 19th Congressional District.
It covered the northern half of Westchester County and then ran north through Putnam, four towns in Orange, and large parts of Dutchess.
It was the Hudson Valley seat.
Or at least so much of that valley as ran from its southern end half way to Albany.
At the time, the district was represented by a Republican whose pedigree went back to the nation's founding.
That Republican was Hamilton Fish IV.
He himself had held the seat since first winning it in 1968.
His namesake father had been a Congressman in the Hudson Valley from 1920 to 1945. That Fish -- the third of the same-named direct descendants -- was famous for having led a company of black soldiers in World War I but later became infamous as an enemy of Franklin Roosevelt and a defeated isolationist in 1944.
His namesake great grandfather had been a Representative, Senator and Governor of New York and the Secretary of State in the Grant and early Hayes Administration. Had Nobel Prizes existed then, he might have won one for negotiating the arbitration agreement with Great Britain that resolved dispute arising out of the Civil War.
Finally, and to start it all, there was his great great grandfather, Nicholas. He had been second in command to Alexander Hamilton at the Battle of Yorktown, for whom he named his son, the later Representative , Senator, Governor and cabinet Secretary, and the first of what would ultimately be five direct Hamilton Fish descendants.
To say I was running against history would be an understatement.
But I did not see it that way.
And neither, I think, did Congressman Fish.
Ours was a spirited campaign.
He was running in support of the legacy and policies of President Reagan and the first President Bush. I questioned that legacy and opposed those policies. He was Right to Life. I was Pro--Choice. He supported NAFTA, the emerging but not yet final North American Free Trade Agreement. I opposed it. I was for pay or play, the Democratic Party's latest attempt at national health insurance; he wasn't. I wanted to build more infrastructure and create an industrial policy that turbocharged new technologies and, I hoped, new industries; he already had with electrification of the Metro North railroad into northern Westchester. In the first of many cycles where Congressional membership for life was wearing thin with the public, I teased him for having been elected when I was twelve; he levelled the charge by citing the experience that came with his long service.
Which included his bipartisan work (and vote) to impeach a president . . .
When I was sixteen.
When the campaign was over, I had won more votes and a higher percentage than any Democrat who had ever run against him.
But he had won.
By a lot.
The night he won, I sent a congratulatory letter and also phoned him with good wishes.
He thanked me for the call . . .
And invited me to his election night party.
We, however, were having our own.
Bill Clinton had been elected president ending twelve years of GOP rule in the White House and that, combined my own respectable vote total against two centuries of history, was more than sufficient cause for celebration in our own right.
And, as it turned out, that showing had also gotten the attention of the Congressman's staffers.
When the partying was over on election night, a friend and I ducked into a bar for a nightcap. In the back, a retinue of Fish campaign and office staffers were drinking and began heckling me to join them. I told my friend I'd buy them a pitcher of beer and say hello. When we did, his legislative director came over and told me she "really liked her boss" but "hoped" I'd win one day. "You'd be better," she said, "than 99% of them." Later, she confessed to having been a little concerned that afternoon when the McDonald's check out lady in her boss's Dutchess stronghold told her she was voting for me.
In the winter of 1995, two and a half years after the '92 campaign, I had lunch with a by then former Congressman Fish.
His former legislative director, the same woman who had come over on election night, invited me.
The three of us talked about politics, the district, the future and the past. Congressman Fish himself had retired in 1994 and his son (also a Hamilton) had run unsuccessfully as a Democrat that year to replace him. The father did not think the son should run again. "He'd lose," said the man who had won thirteen times.
It was clear to me he missed Congress.
He was working as a lawyer for a large firm but the thing he seemed to most enjoy about that job was meeting his old friends on The Hill.
As I drove him back to his DC home that afternoon, I asked a final question:
Had he been criticized by other Republicans for voting as a member of the House Judiciary Committee to impeach President Nixon in 1974?
"Only," he said, "by my father."
I doubt this kind of story will ever be told about today's Republican and Democratic opponents.
Trump is a hater and has made hating a prerequisite in GOP candidates and MAGA fellow-travelers. His first and often only response to criticism by anyone or from any source is insult. His lying is pathological, his ignorance often astounding, and his assault on the rule of law potentially fatal.
He has no friends on the other side of the aisle.
And doesn't really respect anyone who does.
Today, what passes for government is a blizzard of executive orders -- many if not most of them illegal, ill-advised or irrelevant -- because a narrow GOP Congress will not restrain an out-of-control President and dares not work with the other side to actually make law.
In his time, Congressman Fish was known for his ability to work across the aisle, especially on civil rights, and was always a gentleman. In 1992, without giving quarter, we fought but respected each other. In 1995 we talked over lunch for a couple of hours.
In 1996, Congressmen Fish died. He is buried with all the other Hamilton Fishes in a small Episcopal Church graveyard in Garrison NY. After the graveside service , his wife gave me a hug.
Four years later, I went back to that graveside to ask that former legislative director to marry me.
We had met because of him.
And fallen in love . . .
Despite our politics.
Which is another thing not likely to happen today.
For us, politics is a contest, not a cage-fight. Working for the boss she liked never made it impossible for her to love the Democrat she married. And for me . . .
Well . . .
1992 turned out to be a victory after all.
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