IOP Fellows Recall Entering Politics

The five new Institute of Politics fellows last night at the Kennedy School chronicled their entries into politics.

Several of the five speakers in the ARCO Forum entitled "Personal Perspectives on Politics" described themselves as "accidental politicians," people who did not expect to work in government.

David Barrett, former prime minister of British Columbia recalled his childhood in a working class section of Vancouver, spiced by the politics of his "extreme left" mother and his "more rational left" father.

As a social worker in Canadian jails, Barrett said he began to understand the difference between academics and reality.

"[The jails] are like home--clean floors, clean sheets, and someone to swear at," he said, adding that his disgruntlement with the jails and the social problems they reflected led him to enter politics.

"There are plenty of people who are crazy," Barrett said. "Some get elected. Some go to jail."

Thelma Duggin, former assistant to Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole, recalled her initiation into politics as a student at an all-girls Catholic high school.

The only way to meet men, she said, was to join a singing group or to participate in politics. Since she said she couldn't sing, politics was the answer.

After attending a Republican precinct meeting by accident, Duggin said she joined that party and began working her way up in the Georgian Republican machine, culminating in the 1980 Presidential election.

As she drove up the White House driveway for the first time on her way to an interview with Dole, she said she thought, "My God, what am I doing here?"

National Association of Realtors Chief Executive Officer Jack Carlson described his entrance into politics via the military, where he was a pilot.

After writing critical articles on the B-1 Bomber and the inefficacy of the U.S. strategy of controlled escalation in Vietnam, Carlson said he left the military to join the Council of Economic Advisors.

Carlson said he went on to lead a task force on OPEC-induced energy shortages and to run unsuccessfully for Senate, before taking the top post at the National Association of Realtors, the largest PAC in the U.S. With a laugh, he said he accepted the position "on behalf of making democracy work."

Like Carlson and Duggan, Maxine Isaacs has had a career as a national political appointee. Isaacs, the first woman to serve as a press secretary on the national level, acted as former Vice President Walter Mondale's campaign press secretary and former President Carter's deputy press secretary.

She said her origins in Shaker Heights, Ohio, sparked her interest in politics.

New Jersey Speaker of the House Alan Karcher, the fifth IOP fellow, said he has also been concerned with the "people who do not have a voice."

"It all boils down to feeding the hungry, to comforting the afflicted," he said of politics. "These are my personal passions."