Sandra Day O'Connor
It's so nice to have you both at O'Connor House. And we have two significantly political figures with us at O'Connor House today. And they're helping us celebrate Arizona's centennial. We've had 12 United States Senators from Arizona over the last hundred years. And only three of them are alive today. And we have one of them here today. And it is Senator Dennis DeConcini. And Dennis served three terms in the United States Senate. So welcome, Dennis, to O'Connor House–Senator, to O'Connor House. I must be more careful about that.
Dennis DeConcini
Thank you, Your Honor. (laughs)
I'm so used to saying that because my father was a judge, as you know.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Boy, he was on the Arizona Supreme Court, isn't that right?
Dennis DeConcini
Excuse me for going off the subject, but I always say, you know, in my house, you always addressed your father, "Your Honor."
Sandra Day O'Connor
Yes. Good. Good. And Congressman John Shadegg is also here with us today. He served eight terms in the House of Representatives. And you're still there, isn't that right?
John Shadegg
No, I retired at the beginning of this term.
Sandra Day O'Connor
And you were replaced.
John Shadegg
I was replaced.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Nobody can replace you, but somebody holds the office.
John Shadegg
Somebody holds my seat.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Okay. Well, we welcome you to O'Connor House today.
John Shadegg
It's a pleasure to be here.
Sandra Day O'Connor
And both of you come from politically active families. You weren't the first, in either case, in your families to be interested in Arizona's political life. So tell me how you got started and what person in your family stimulated you? Was it both, or one?
Dennis DeConcini
It was both, you know, I grew up in a political family. My father was very active, ran Governor Osborn's campaign, he ran three times before he got elected [in 1940]. And as a result of that, we talked politics all the time at the table. My mother started the League of Women Voters in Tucson, used to drag my older brother Dino and I down there to these meetings. And you're saying, "What are we doing down here?" you know. What's this all about, women want to have more say? My mother had a lot of say at our house. So we just grew up in it. And as life progressed, we talked a lot about government, not just politics, but about service. My father served as a superior court judge and Attorney General and a Supreme Court Judge, as you mentioned, and so I grew up that way. And I always knew I was going to run for office, but I never knew which one except I had a feeling that Attorney General would really be something I'd like to do.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Of the state.
Dennis DeConcini
Of the state. Particularly after I got out of law school, because my father was Attorney General.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Now you went to University of Arizona, and to law school at the University of Arizona.
Dennis DeConcini
I did. When the time came, my father was a great inspiration, as was Governor Raul Castro. I ran his campaign, his second campaign that he won [in 1974]. And they encouraged me to run for the Senate.
Sandra Day O'Connor
And so that was your first political office in Arizona.
Dennis DeConcini
No, I was County Attorney at the time, of Pima County.
Sandra Day O'Connor
County Attorney first.
Dennis DeConcini
And Governor Castro–the legislature at the time, which was controlled by the Republicans, Burton Barr and great people like that, I got along with them real well. And the governor got along with them respectably even though they were different parties. And they passed a significant bill creating the drug strike force for Arizona. And he appointed me to run that in addition to being Pima County, and that was really exciting to get involved.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Well that was a major effort.
Dennis DeConcini
Yeah, to get involved with that. And to have a bipartisan support from the legislature and the governor, it was a wonderful, wonderful experience.
Sandra Day O'Connor
And from that into the Senate campaign.
Dennis DeConcini
And then I ran for the Senate. Paul Fannin was teetering back and forth. Governor Castro and my father said, "Go ahead and run for the Senate."
Sandra Day O'Connor
Big step.
Dennis DeConcini
Big step. Morris Udall, who was a longtime friend of my family's, couldn't decide. He was running for president against Jimmy Carter. And he couldn't decide whether to run for the Senate if Paul Fannin didn't run. Run for the House and, because then he would be the Chairman of the Interior Committee, which is very important to Arizona. Or if he won president, the nomination, of course he'd do that. And he wanted to hold all the positions. And we'd known the Udalls forever. Levi served on the Supreme Court with my father. Morris and Stewart were lawyers in my father's office next door. So you know, we grew up with the Udalls. And brilliant, brilliant political people and great representatives, but he couldn't decide. And my father and Governor Castro said, "Don't wait, just announce and run." And I did.
Sandra Day O'Connor
And you won.
Dennis DeConcini
And, well, Ernest McFarland, who Barry Goldwater defeated, but he became a judge and the governor here, he was head of my committee for running, and Governor Castro. And, you know, it was, got real lucky.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Well, I think you did a good job. Now, what was your first attempt and how did it go?
John Shadegg
There are a lot of similarities as I listened to Dennis, Senator DeConcini, tell that story. And there are a number of similarities. He talked about there being plenty of political or philosophical discussion at the DeConcini table. We did not have to call my dad "Sir" or "Your Honor," but we did have to be up to speed on kind of the political activity of the day, the public policy issues of the day, what was being debated, both at the state capitol and in Washington. And we had lots of vigorous dinner table discussion. And you better be prepared or it was not going to be all that pleasant a meal. So in that way, I guess the DeConcini family table and the Shadegg family dinner table were very similar. My father did not serve in public office. He really began life as a writer, writing led him into what his kind of involvement in politics was, which was as a campaign manager.
Sandra Day O'Connor
What was his first campaign?
John Shadegg
Well his first campaign was for a Maricopa County Sheriff. I believe it was Ernie Roach. My dad had kind of befriended Roach and wanted to learn some stories, actually learn crime stories. And when Roach was up for reelection [in 1946], he said, "Steve, you're a writer, would you help me run my campaign?" In those days, of course, Ernie Roach was a Democrat. Everybody was a Democrat, there was no such thing as a–
Sandra Day O'Connor
Yes, most of them were in Arizona for–when did it shift a little to more even Republican and Democrat?
John Shadegg
Well, I don't think it was like until the late 60s, early 70s.
Dennis DeConcini
My recollection is when it, the shift was so clear, even though the registration did not shift to the majority, was when Eisenhower and Goldwater ran in '52. It was a major political revolution. And just to interrupt John for a minute, I paid a lot of attention to that race. My family was deeply involved in Ernest McFarland's campaign. And I observed his father and some other prominent Phoenicians put together a candidate who had this "clean up Phoenix from the corruption, the prostitution," all the things that were going in there. After doing that, then running for the Senate, and you know, I never forget observing that campaign. And it's a lesson that I, I met your father but I never knew him, but I had such respect for this guy and getting the Goldwater crew to put together. And of course it was a big victory. Even though the registration still was majority [Democrat].
Sandra Day O'Connor
And your father did that.
John Shadegg
'52 senatorial campaign. Senator Goldwater was taking on the sitting Majority Leader of the United States Senate.
Sandra Day O'Connor
How about that?
John Shadegg
Pretty stunning.
Video Clip
Barry Goldwater
In fact, I'll never forget. I came back here one day on Central Arizona Project business, and Mac had just been made leader, Majority Leader of the Senate. And I said, "Mac, you are out of your head." I said, "You cannot carry that Truman, he's going to be too heavy an anvil around your neck. Someone's gonna beat you!" And, never dreaming for one minute that I would be the guy to try it. Because I used to go out and raise money for him, I liked him so much.
Well, that's the way it went.
John Shadegg
Senator Goldwater had caught the political bug two years earlier in the governor's race, he'd flown the Republican candidate for governor all around the state,
Sandra Day O'Connor
The only thing he had done was for city of Phoenix, isn't that right?
John Shadegg
Yes, Barry served on the city council prior to that, and then got involved in the campaign for Governor. helped the Republican candidate, flew him around the state and really caught the bug. But to finish what I was saying earlier, while people think of my dad as always having been a Republican, he ran these sheriff's campaigns, first for Ernie Roach and then for a sheriff in Maricopa County named Cal Boies. And then ultimately Carl Hayden. He ran a campaign for Senator Hayden.
Sandra Day O'Connor
He did.
John Shadegg
And years later, he would tell me stories about the things that he, my dad, learned from Senator Hayden in the course of that campaign. And of course in those days, the campaigns were all in the Democrat primary.
Dennis DeConcini
Yeah.
John Shadegg
Once Senator Hayden won the Democrat primary–
Sandra Day O'Connor
That was it.
John Shadegg
It was a done deal, it was over. But the '52 campaign was a shift where Arizona began to turn, at least nationally, to the Republican Party. Though as you referred to, the registration was not near Republican at that time. When Senator Goldwater won, it was, maybe it wasn't eight to one, but it was a heavily Democrat state. [O'CONNOR INSTITUTE NOTE: Arizona voter registration in 1952 was approximately 3-to-1 for Democrats vs. Republicans.]
Dennis DeConcini
It was heavily Democrat.
John Shadegg
No question about that.
Video Clip
Morris Udall
To get anywhere in politics, you had to be a Democrat, almost, for years and years and decades. But by about 1952, it all came together. And there was a, Barry had helped Howard Pyle run for governor two years earlier. And busted that rule, that Republicans couldn't be governor in Arizona. And two years later, he got the crazy idea of running against the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, Ernest McFarland. And he was trying to recruit a ticket so he'd be a little bit stronger and have some company in this uphill, crazy thing that he was doing. And then he called, in Mesa there was a young lawyer named John Rhodes. And he said, "John, why don't you run for Congress?" John said, "Hell, I don't want to go to Congress." And Barry said, "Don't worry, you won't." (crowd laughs)
But he did. And he defeated a Democrat who was Chairman of the Interior Committee. A terrible thing to do.
John Shadegg
That was kind of the beginning of my father's professional career in politics, managing campaigns, and riding in the political arena.
Sandra Day O'Connor
What was your first step?
John Shadegg
My first step came many, many years later. Actually, it came when Jon Kyl had won a seat in the US Senate. I had made a decision that, I guess going back to about 1984, somewhere in there, I decided that I wanted to work on a campaign. I'd worked on a number of political campaigns as a manager with my dad, kind of helping him. We did, I did campaigns in Utah and Idaho and in Arizona, worked on all of those in college and in law school and had worked on campaigns in grade school and high school as a kid growing up. But I kind of reached a decision, did I want to continue managing campaigns, in which case they'd say, "Oh, yeah, Steve Shadegg was a campaign manager, John Shadegg is a campaign manager." And I began to actually worry—and some women will, can relate to this—you know, if you keep running campaigns, they'll say, "Always a campaign manager, never a candidate," kind of like women worry about, "Always a bridesmaid, never the bride." And so I went to Colorado, I ran a campaign there for a young man who was trying to move from the state legislature to the US House. He was successful, and I came back to Arizona and decided I would never run a campaign for money again, I would give my services away for free and help people, and I did help Jon Kyl in his first race, but I would not accept pay for it because I wanted to break that image of a campaign manager.
And so in 1994, Senator, then-Congressman Kyl was going to run for the United States Senate. I was pretty certain of that. And I actually announced for his seat in a letter to the Republican precinct committeemen, before he made his announcement that he was going to run for the Senate. And I wrote and said, look, if Senator Kyl, if Congressman Kyl runs for the United States Senate, I will be a candidate for his seat. And that was my first entry into elected office. I was not the favored candidate, the favored candidate was picked kind of by the Phoenix 40 and heavily supported by them, supposed to win, backed by this paper, heavily favored. We all remember John Colby, Colby wrote that my opponent was the 800-pound gorilla in the race, and that nobody was going to beat him. Well, you know, sometimes politics don't work out that way.
Dennis DeConcini
That's right.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Was the race close?
John Shadegg
In the end, the 800-pound gorilla finished third.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Oh my word.
Dennis DeConcini
Is that right? That's so interesting.
John Shadegg
Absolutely. And interestingly, the second-place finisher was Trent Franks, now in our delegation, and he and I have become friends since then. I won the race in '94, Trent went, took Bob Stump's seat a number of years later, and we have a great friendship. But I finished first with those three.
Sandra Day O'Connor
How interesting. I served in the legislature here with Bob Stump. He was on the Democratic side,
Dennis DeConcini
I knew Bob's family forever. My father, when he was on the Supreme Court, was a friend of Jesse Stump, who was in the legislature. They used to have lunch together. Small world.
Sandra Day O'Connor
That's interesting.
Dennis DeConcini
And then, you know, if I can, just to mention, you know, my mother's family came from Graham County. A large Mormon family over where your family is.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Yes, we were one step further, in Greenlee County.
Dennis DeConcini
In Greenlee County, right. We used to go to Greenlee County, and my aunt was the chairman of the Republican county party.
Sandra Day O'Connor
In Graham County? Is that right?
Dennis DeConcini
There weren't very many Republicans.
Sandra Day O'Connor
No, very few.
Dennis DeConcini
And Dino and I spent summers on the farm there with the Claridges and the Bamas and all those people.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Oh how fun.
Dennis DeConcini
And when, you know, and Goldwater, we'll get into this later, but he liked my aunt and knew her so well, her name was Zola Claridge, that he just, I think every time he saw me, he saw my aunt. He wanted to know Aunt Zola.
Sandra Day O'Connor
He wanted to know about Zola. Good.
Video clip
Barry Goldwater
Our early settlers all came from the South. And they were all very, very conservative Democrats. So the state actually never even, I don't think they had Republicans in there till after we became a state, and then they were hard to find. I learned that the first time I ran for public office. I remember going to Greenlee County. We had 10 Republicans in the whole county. And by God, I finally carried that county.
Sandra Day O'Connor
You're still serving in the Congress.
John Shadegg
No, I finished last January.
Sandra Day O'Connor
You finished, and it's over, and are you gonna try to go back, or have you had it?
John Shadegg
I guess with him sitting here I ought to confess this, the only place I'd go back would be to the Senate. I've been there, done that in the US House, one out of 435. The Senate is still the most exclusive club in the world, as I think you probably know, from having been confirmed there.
Sandra Day O'Connor
It is.
John Shadegg
And so it holds some interest for me, but we'll see if those cards play out. I did want to make a comment about kind of Arizona political history. The O'Connor House is focused on discourse, civil discourse. And one of the early lessons I learned on, about civil discourse came actually from Carl Hayden. And it's a part of Arizona history. And I think it's something that Arizonans and Arizona political leaders might learn from.
Sandra Day O'Connor
What did he say?
John Shadegg
Well, the story goes, and my dad told me this story years after, maybe even after Senator Hayden had passed, I told you he managed a campaign for Senator Hayden. Hayden was up for reelection. In the preceding term, two very well connected, and if I said their names, prominent business leaders, you'd recognize them in Arizona, had gone back to him in the Senate in the preceding term and said, Senator Hayden, we need this favor. We need you to do this. Well, Senator Hayden thought it was not the right thing to do. And so he had the courage. These were fellow Democrats, powerful people in the Phoenix business community. And he said, "No, I'm not going to do it." Well, they became very upset with him. So they went out and they recruited a candidate to run against Senator Hayden in the Democrat primary. This was the primary my dad was hired to manage Senator Hayden's campaign.
So for months, my dad managed that campaign, and his goal was to get Senator Hayden reelected. And these two individuals, he knew had put, my dad knew had put the candidate into the race. And they were vigorously trying to beat Senator Hayden. And so this was mortal combat, this was very important. Well, the day of the election night, primary election night, Senator Hayden wins, and he says to my dad, "Steve, what are you doing tomorrow?" And my dad said, "Well, I'm gonna begin boxing up the campaign and closing things up." And Senator Hayden said, "Well, why don't you meet me over at the Westwood Ho hotel at the Press Club for lunch." So my dad did that, and he said, "I'd be honored to do that, Senator."
And so he walks in, and he sits down, and the Senator's sitting here, and he says, "Senator, what have you been doing this morning?" And the Senator says, "Well, I've had a great morning, Steve. First thing I did is I went over and saw," and he names one of the two guys that had put the candidate into the race against him. "And we had a great chat, and everything was wonderful." My dad was just shocked, I mean his face went ashen, stunned.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Oh my.
John Shadegg
And then without even breaking stride, Senator Hayden can see this reaction on my dad's face, he says, "And then I went over to the Title and Trust building and dropped in on," and he names the second individual.
Sandra Day O'Connor
The other man.
John Shadegg
And my dad's now just completely stunned. The chin hits the table.
Dennis DeConcini
Great story.
John Shadegg
He's just blown away by this, is stunned. And Senator Hayden can see that on his face, and Senator Hayden says to my dad, "Steve, never give your enemies any more reason to go on hating you than they already have." And the message really was, that's a harsh way to say it, but what he was really saying is, you know, this is a business in which you need to communicate. And they had a point they wanted to make, they were unhappy, but I've now been reelected, and I need to work with them going forward, so I think—
Sandra Day O'Connor
So continue the dialogue.
John Shadegg
So, continue the dialogue. Civil discourse, the O'Connor House, one of the things it's dedicated to.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Exactly. It does matter. And how have you experienced that in your years in the Congress, in terms of discourse? Does it help to yell and scream or act up, or what gets the work done?
John Shadegg
Well, if you're on cable TV, then you get some reward for yelling and screaming, but nothing gets done that's productive. All you do is sell cable TV time and cable TV ads. What you have to be willing to do if you want to make progress and policy is sit down, have a respect for the other views, have respect for the other individuals and the perspectives they come from, and then work toward a solution.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Exactly.
John Shadegg
And interestingly, I think at least in Washington, lots gets done at the kind of the day-to-day grist—and I'd be interested if Senator DeConcini agrees with this—without any disagreement at all. They sit down and solve relatively small problems. When you get to the big issues that philosophically divide us, that becomes quite a bit more difficult. But still, being willing to talk is important. I think we're right now in the shadow of the so-called "Super Committee." And it seems to me, every comment I heard by a member of the Super Committee about someone else on the committee, one of their colleagues on the other side, was complimentary.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Yes. So they weren't fighting each other at that time.
John Shadegg
It wasn't a matter of personal vendetta or dislike.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Senator DeConcini, you tell me your reaction to this discussion.
Dennis DeConcini
My best example of that is
when I was sworn into the Senate, after my family had been deeply involved in campaigns against Barry Goldwater. My father knew Barry Goldwater, liked him and respected him. So he had every reason to give me a cold shoulder, and I was expecting that. I said, you know, this was asking too much. Well, he knew my family, my wife's family, and he couldn't have been nicer. And I remember that so well.
Sandra Day O'Connor
That's good.
Dennis DeConcini
He always called me "Denny." And he said, "You come on over to my office." So I went over there after we were sworn in. He says, "Now Denny," he says, "we're gonna disagree on a lot of stuff, just because we're Democrat, Republican. But," he says, "you know, we're not going to disagree on anything in Arizona." He said, "I followed your campaign."
Sandra Day O'Connor
That's great.
Dennis DeConcini
He made a very positive statement after I was elected. And then we we did disagree on many things. You know, we didn't vote the same way. But every time he ran, and every time I ran, we had an understanding that we would endorse our party's candidate, and that would be all. And when Bill Schulz ran against him [in 1980], the millionaire apartment owner here—
Sandra Day O'Connor
Yes, I remember that.
Dennis DeConcini
Spent, I don't know, four or five million dollars of his own money, which was a lot of money in those days.
Sandra Day O'Connor
A lot of money.
Dennis DeConcini
They asked me to do an ad, you know, critical of the Senator. And I said, "I can't do that." And I never forget, he called me up the day after the election. He said, "Denny, thank you. I know what you didn't do."
Sandra Day O'Connor
Oh that's great. That's a good story.
Dennis DeConcini
Yeah. And I never forget that story. He was a marvelous man because he had high principles. And far more to the right than I was. But, you know, some of his good friends were [Sens.] Ted Kennedy and Russell Long and John Steniss, who came from different political backgrounds. And then as Goldwater progressed, he, in my opinion, he kind of changed views. I don't know if it was just, as you get older you sometimes do that. But he just became more and more, in my opinion, like for gay rights and some hot issues. And he took another look at them, you know, and he didn't just stay, stay the line. And you know, I served with Orrin Hatch and Malcolm Wallop. We all came in the same time. And they're so—
Sandra Day O'Connor
A little tougher line.
Dennis DeConcini
So dedicated to their principle, but they know how to be civil about it. You could just sit down and you talk to them. And as John said, the little issues are not the big deal. It's the constituencies on these big issues that make you dig in. But we didn't yell.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Right. Do you think there's less civility today than there was? I think so.
Dennis DeConcini
Oh gosh, there's no question about it. There's no question. Up until January, I was a registered lobbyist. And I could see most Senators because I knew most of them. And recently, I was back there seeing Senator Grassley about something, not lobbying, just something personal. And we sat there in his office after we talked about it, and we talked about the civility or the non-civility. He said, "It is just mean-spirited here, Dennis. From both sides," he says.
Sandra Day O'Connor
I think it's true at the state level, too. And what can we do about it? What should we be doing about it?
John Shadegg
Well, I think there are a number of things we can do. I think it begins with the people that we encourage to run and the climate that we create, the climate candidates have to live in. If you make that climate so bitter and so ugly because the paper's willing to attack them, or their opponents are willing to attack them viciously, there's no aspect of their life in which they can have any degree of privacy, then that, I think, causes people not to want to make the sacrifice of running.
I think there are two things about Barry Goldwater that were consistent all along and never changed. And one was his respect for and love of Arizona, which he was taught by Mun.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Very genuine.
John Shadegg
Absolutely. Mun, his mother—his father was a haberdasher and fairly stiff, and formal. Three-piece suit every day, off to work. But Mun was the spunky one in the family. She taught Bob and Barry to play golf. She taught Bob and Barry to hunt and shoot. She took Bob and Barry camping all over the state of Arizona. And so I think he had this deep love of Arizona reflected in Senator DeConcini's comment where Senator Goldwater welcomes him in and says, "By the way, we may disagree on philosophical issues governing the nation, but we're not going to disagree on Arizona," because loyalty to Arizona was very important to him. And sometimes I think today's politicians here in Arizona, especially if they come from somewhere else, don't have that deep Arizona respect.
Sandra Day O'Connor
I want to know what each of you would tell me to celebrate, look forward or look backward at Arizona's first hundred years and look forward to what we should do. Give me a thought or two on the occasion that brings us together.
John Shadegg
Well, my answer would be, "Be proud of Arizona and its history." We have had a much larger impact on the nation and therefore on the world than a small little Western state would deserve. How many Arizonans have run for president, four? Four in our lifetimes. Pretty impressive.
Sandra Day O'Connor
That is amazing.
John Shadegg
I believe Arizona has always had a larger than deserved or larger than life impact on the national scene. We've had tremendous leaders beginning with Carl Hayden.
Sandra Day O'Connor
We have.
John Shadegg
Senator Goldwater himself. The Udall brothers. We've had leaders that have exceeded what you would expect from a small little Western state.
Sandra Day O'Connor
We have. We've had great leaders.
John Shadegg
Not only yourself on the Supreme Court as the first woman justice, but also Justice Rehnquist, from a tiny little state.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Yes. Chief Justice Rehnquist as it turned out.
John Shadegg
Chief Justice. Absolutely.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Isn't that interesting? And to have two members of the Supreme Court from Arizona at the same time—
John Shadegg
Pretty stunning.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Is very surprising, particularly for a smaller state. And you know, when I was nominated for the Court, it was a huge surprise to the nation. But it was an even bigger surprise to the nominee, me!
Video Clip
Ronald Reagan
I will send to the Senate the nomination of Judge Sandra Day O'Connor of Arizona Court of Appeals for confirmation as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. And I have long believed that the time has come for the highest court in our land to include not only distinguished men but distinguished women as well.
Sandra Day O'Connor
When it happened, Senator DeConcini stepped in immediately with good comments and saying what a good idea, and "I'm pleased and happy about it." And that made such a difference. Here he was holding office from Arizona as a Democrat in the Senate.
Dennis DeConcini
Right.
Sandra Day O'Connor
And for him to do that made a difference. And what it did, in effect, was at the time of the hearings in the Senate, it just made it easier. It was not a contentious hearing, thank goodness.
John Shadegg
He had been shown kindness by Senator Goldwater.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Thank you for that.
Dennis DeConcini
Well thank you, it was a privilege to do it. But even before that, when Rehnquist was nominated, I was on the Judiciary Committee. That was a different situation.
Sandra Day O'Connor
It was tough.
Dennis DeConcini
I stuck up for him and I voted for him.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Yeah. But it was hard.
Dennis DeConcini
The Democrats wanted to defeat him. The reason: I knew him vaguely through my father. My father used to tell me what a tremendous lawyer he was.
Sandra Day O'Connor
He was a marvelous lawyer. He was gifted. And your father, the judge, would have known.
Dennis DeConcini
Yeah, my father knew that. So I had great respect, even though I wasn't close to him. And then I looked at all this stuff that the Democrats were doing, it was not…And so, when I wrote my letter to the Republic, supporting you—other people had done a lot more—I got a lot of press out of it! And obviously, so when you do that, they're saying, "Man, how smart are you?" You know. So I went to see Barry Goldwater about it. And he says, "Denny, that's a great idea, I'm going to call the president." And while I'm sitting there, he tries to get Judy Eisenhower to get the president online. He couldn't do it. He left a message later that day, he said, "I talked to him, he's gonna, they're going to interview her."
Sandra Day O'Connor
Good.
Dennis DeConcini
And then when when you came back, you made such an impression. As you remember, I took you around to every Democratic Senate, because that's where I was afraid. We were in the majority.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Exactly.
Dennis DeConcini
And you made such an impression. I mean, Ted Kennedy—
Sandra Day O'Connor
I don't know about that.
Dennis DeConcini
Oh you did. You did. Ted Kennedy voted for you. He was stronger for you than Strom Thurmond was!
Video Clip
Sandra Day O'Connor
I'm absolutely overjoyed with t