With just over a month to go before election day, Irish-American leaders are scrambling to attract the presidential contenders, or their vice presidential ticket partners, to a forum in which they would answer questions of interest to Irish-American voters.
A forum has been staged every presidential election year since 1984. And it has always been held in New York. This year, however, there has been so much talk about where a forum might take place that the “when” has been confined to the sidelines.
The Ancient Order of Hibernians is one group attempting to attract at least one candidate — and preferably two — under an Irish-American roof for an hour or two before Nov. 2. It’s turning out to be anything but an easy task.
“I don’t know where we’re at. There is no good venue at this point,” the AOH national president, Ned McGinley, said. “They can’t seem to come out of the ‘where’ mindset,” he added, referring to the two main presidential campaign camps.
“But it’s really the questions for the candidates that count. The answers apply everywhere,” he said.
McGinley said that the John Kerry campaign had put out “feelers” with regard to a possible AOH-organized forum.
“They have been talking about Philadelphia or a venue in Ohio,” McGinley said. “Even Florida was mentioned at one point.
“We’ll meet with either candidate or both candidates anywhere. Obviously Pennsylvania would be easy for us. We would pack the house in Philadelphia.”
Stella O’Leary, who heads the lobby group Irish American Democrats, is expecting to do just that with a forum entitled “Election 2004 and Ireland” which has been set for Philadelphia on Saturday, Oct. 2.
However, the IAD event is a partisan affair mainly designed to specifically present the Democratic party’s positions on Ireland.
“We’re not keeping anybody out. Republicans can come too as long as they don’t heckle,” O’Leary said.
She said that the Democratic ticket members John Kerry and John Edwards were being invited to the forum, but it was going ahead whether they could make it or not.
“We’re not fussy if they don’t come,” O’Leary said.
The forum is being held at an AFL-CIO hall in Locust Street and the Irish American Democrats are laying on a free bus to the event from Washington, D.C.
Participants lined up for the forum include Democratic Party chairman
Terry McAuliffe and Rep. Richard Neal, a co-chair of the congressional Ad Hoc Committee for Irish Affairs.
O’Leary’s group had considered an attempt to organize a debate on Ireland in conjunction with the upcoming vice presidential debate in Cleveland.
“Bruce Springsteen is playing in Cleveland and he’s sucking up all the oxygen there, O’Leary said.
“And besides, Pennsylvania is now in play, unfortunately,” said O’Leary in reference to the presidential campaign.
Former Assemblyman John Dearie has been having to deal with the fact that New York is not so much in doubt as an explanation for the fact that he has been having trouble nailing down a bipartisan presidential forum in the Big Apple.
“The difficulty has been the fact that New York is not in play, so both sides have been very tentative on this. It’s very frustrating,” Dearie said.
But while New York is expected to stay Democratic on Nov. 2, the race in the Empire State between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry is tightening, according to two opinion polls released last week.
Dearie, a Democrat, organized the first Irish-American forum exactly 20 years ago. That event was staged in the Bronx and was attended by former Vice President Walter Mondale, who was running against President Ronald Reagan that year.
In recent years, the New York forum has been organized on a strictly bipartisan basis by Dearie, his fellow Democrat Rep. Joe Crowley, and the GOP’s Rep. Peter King.
Four years ago the forum, held in Manhattan, was attended by Vice President Al Gore. The leading Republican candidates that year, George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain, did not make the event.
Somewhat ironically, Bush’s absence was in part due to his attendance at a St. Patrick’s Day parade in upstate New York on that day.
Dearie expressed frustration that he would not be able to make a pitch for both Bush and Kerry on the day of the annual Al Smith Dinner in New York.
Both the president and his Democratic challenger had been expected to be invited to and attend the annual charity event organized by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York.
But in a move that has sparked controversy, the archdiocese did not send invitations to both men. Kerry, reports have suggested, is off the guest list for the Oct. 21 dinner because of his pro-choice position on abortion. President Bush is not being invited because of papal disapproval of the war in Iraq.
Dearie said he was bitterly disappointed at the fact that the candidates would not be together in Manhattan on the same day less than two weeks before the election.
However, Dearie said that he was pinning renewed hope on the expected visit to the city next week of Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards.
The New York forum has more often than not attracted serving vice presidents, former vice presidents and, as was the case in 1984 and 2000, a vice president who was also running for the Oval Office.
Should Edwards be lined up for a forum, it would be the first time for an actual vice presidential contender.
The North Carolina senator is due in New York City on Monday, Sept. 27.
Meanwhile, former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican and Mayor of Boston Ray Flynn has chastised both the Democratic and Republican parties for “refusing to take a firm position on peace, justice and human rights in Northern Ireland” in their respective party platforms unveiled during the recent conventions.
In doing so, Flynn said in a statement, “both Republican and Democratic Party platforms are ignoring our proud Irish-American heritage.”
Such political inaction, Flynn said, was “an insult and betrayal to millions of Irish Americans.”
Flynn chaired the panel of questioners at the 1992 presidential forum in New York which was attended by then presidential hopefuls Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown.