Byline: Monica Davey
LOS ANGELES _ Every now and then, an older, unforgettable face floats by in the convention hall, between the clusters of young politicians, young journalists and young movie stars in this city of youth.
These are the ghosts of Democratic conventions past, people like Geraldine Ferraro, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Ann Richards, Jimmy Carter, Mario Cuomo and more.
Once, they held top billings at their own conventions. Some even made the defining moments that sealed a convention in history: Ferraro made her mark as the first female vice presidential candidate; Mondale gambled (perhaps unwisely) and announced that, as president, he would raise taxes; Richards, the former Texas governor, famously jabbed that President George Bush was born with a "silver foot in his mouth."
They have faded now into political memory, moving on to jobs in consulting and teaching and _ most frequently, it seemed this week _ offering their perspectives on the TV political talk circuit.
Most of them no longer wield the same influence within their party, but they win as many nods of recognition from delegates here as the Hollywood stars get. Besides, most have been coming to these conventions every four years for their entire adult lives. Coming here is coming home.
"I like to see them," said Larry Sabato, a political scientist from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. "Do they carry influence? No. But it doesn't matter. They remind all of us that there's life after politics. Politics, you know, is always dynamic. One thing about being in Hollywood _ you can see that the star machine is eating up their stars faster than we do in the political world, thank goodness."
Once central at the convention podium, these politicians now are crucial to another circuit. They kept a dizzying pace on CNN, which in four days, brought forward Mondale, then Dukakis, then Cuomo. Richards, meanwhile, declined to be interviewed by the Tribune, her aides said, because she had committed to regular analyses this week on CNN.
Former President Carter received a special tribute in the convention hall. He declined, though, to give a speech. In an interview with CNN, he said he was happy to be in L.A. "Some of the conventions have not been as eager to see me present," Carter said.
Delegates said they liked seeing the party's older stars, in part, because they had seen few truly defining moments at this year's convention. The former leaders reminded them of drama from the past: Tom Hayden's anti-war protests in 1968, Barbara Jordan's stirring keynote address in 1976, Cuomo's dramatic speech about President Ronald Reagan in 1984.
"A shining city is perhaps all the president sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well," Cuomo said 16 years ago. "There is despair, Mr. President, in faces you never see, in the places you never visit in your shining city."
This year, for the first time in 20 years, Cuomo, the former governor of New York, was not at the Democratic convention. He was at his law office in New York. He said he didn't want to get in the way of his son, Andrew Cuomo, the HUD secretary.
"I kind of miss it," Mario Cuomo said from New York. "But two Cuomos would be a glut. I do miss being in there fighting. And trying to get Gore votes. If I were there, they'd want to do daddy and Andrew things. And that's no good for Andrew. He's way past that stage. He's better than I am at anything."
Since 1984, he has been approached hundreds of times by people who recalled the famous speech, Cuomo said. At the time, though, he didn't think it was that big a deal. In fact, he insists, he didn't really
want to give it. "I never have liked the podium frankly."
"It was really just substantive," he said. "It wasn't poetry. I didn't bite my lip. It wasn't a matter of drama or even humor. It was stuff that people were interested in."
Cuomo is watching this year on TV. As it turns out, he said, it's easier to see from there. The views, too, are better.
Hayden, of Chicago 7 fame, meanwhile, was watching the convention from the nearly same perspective he had in 1968. Reached on his cellular phone on Thursday, Hayden, now a California state senator, was standing in the midst of a large protest in Los Angeles' garment district. Asked how he felt about his roles, then and now, as an icon in politics, Hayden got angry. "It's very tiring to get asked that question again and again for years. If anything will drive me out of politics, it will be one more reporter asking me about my role."
What matters, Hayden continued, was the protest movement, the poor treatment of people crossing over the U.S. borders, the undue influence of money and corporations in politics.
Some things, it seems, change less with time.
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