February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has already spoken at the “flexible” Irish American Presidential Forum and at presstime there was encouraging signs that Senator John McCain might follow with a forum appearance in the near future, perhaps at a venue in Philadelphia.
The invitation to attend has also gone out to Senator Barack Obama and it is to be hoped that he will find the time to speak to Irish America in a forum setting before the summer settles in.
With regard to Senator McCain, it would be a ground breaker in forum history should he turn up, this given the fact that he would be first Republican candidate to do so.
If anything is to be learned about U.S. involvement in Ireland in recent years it is that such activity is significantly enhanced when it has a bipartisan dimension.
Just as leading New York Democrats, not to mention the state’s most prominent elected independent, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, traveled to the North for last week’s investment conference, so too did Paula Dobriansky, President Bush’s envoy.
The cross-political nature of the U.S. delegation was only further confirmation that there are important issues that all political shades can agree on, even in a general election year.