A late governor's words meant the world to me

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Mario Cuomo’s speech to the Democratic National Convention in 1984 was the first speech that ever truly inspired me.

I had just graduated from Boston College that May and was working for Arthur Andersen & Co. in Manhattan. I was raised in a Democratic family, and my faith and my parents instilled in me an obligation to try to help the poor and the vulnerable. Most of my peers of the newly minted Me Generation, however, had flocked to Ronald Reagan and the survival-of-the-fittest mentality. That same philosophy later gave us Gordon Gecko and “Greed is good.”

As I walked by the growing number of bag ladies and homeless veterans on the city’s streets, I feared the government program cuts to housing and felt helpless. The explosion of paper entrepreneurs who made millions buying and then dismantling former manufacturing companies, which had offered good jobs at good wages, and the newly installed federal deficit clock made things seem out of control and destined for ruin.

Winston Churchill said, “Any young man who isn’t a liberal has no heart.” Well, I was a young man, and my heart was breaking. President Reagan was soaring in popularity, and while “Morning in America” commercials played to rave reviews, neither Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale nor anyone else was fighting for those who couldn’t fight for themselves.

Then Mario Cuomo spoke.

“It’s an old story,” he told the convention. “It’s as old as our history. The difference between Democrats and Republicans has always been measured in courage and confidence. … The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind by the side of the trail. … ‘The strong,’ they tell us, ‘will inherit the land.’

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