By Dick Miller
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: Now a second very prominent Republican has died in roughly a year’s time. I was never able to meet and talk with either.
I am speaking of Elsie Hillman, wife of billionaire industrialist Henry Hillman, philanthropist and GOP pillar (this description the headline in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). She died at age 89 this week in Pittsburgh.
The first was Richard Mellon Scaife, also a billionaire, who died at age 82 in July 2014. Both Scaife and Mrs. Hillman donated scads of money to worthy causes and, of course, were very prominent in Republican circles.
The similarity ended there.
Scaife funded daily hatchet jobs against Democrats, pouring money into the Pittsburgh Tribune Review to the extent that so much is unaccounted for his children are suing the managers of his trusts. Scaife’s newspaper once was the chief packager of editorials and news columns claiming that President Bill Clinton or his wife Hillary were responsible for the death of Deputy White House counsel Vince Foster.
Mrs. Hillman may be the last moderate Republican that the conservative arm of the Party would not think of crossing. No one ever called her a “RINO” (Republican In Name Only).
This despite her very moderate stance on the Equal Rights Amendment, gay rights and abortion. She was also one of the shrewdest political operatives ever to operate on the Pennsylvania scene.
She was an early and major backer of Governors Bill Scranton and Dick Thornburgh, US Senators John Heinz, Richard Schweiker and Arlen Specter, all social moderates.
Perhaps her biggest single achievement was the advancement of Tom Ridge, an obscure Congressman from Erie, to the Governor’s mansion in Harrisburg. Most top political operatives respected her prowess.
At a small, private breakfast in Harrisburg in late 1993 or early 1994 who would be the next governor was the subject. The late Bob Casey was finishing his second term.
This writer opined that Republican Ernie Preate, then state Attorney-General, had a clear shot, particularly since there appeared to be no prominent Democrat challenger. In addition, Casey was completing an eight-year cycle under Democrat control.
Bill George, longtime president of the state AFL-CIO, was at the table. A very prominent Democrat, George also had to know what was transpiring on the GOP side.
George leans into the writer and – in almost a whisper – says, “Elsie has decided Tom Ridge should be governor and she always delivers. Preate is dead in the water.”
Almost as soon as this writer arrived back home, leaks began appearing in the press to the extent that Preate was under investigation for corruption. He never made it to even the primary ballot.
Ridge was pro-choice and very popular with organized labor. He served seven terms as the Congressional representative for Northwest PA. He never finished his second term as governor. George W. Bush called the Vietnam veteran to Washington to become the first Homeland Security Advisor, less than a month after the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
On January 24, 2003, Ridge became the first Secretary of Homeland Security, a job he held until February 1, 2005. Mrs. Hillman was in close contact with the entire Bush clan and likely helped push Ridge onto the national scene.
Her influence also extended to Pittsburgh city hall and the Allegheny County Courthouse, both usually under solid Democrat control. More than once Mrs. Hillman helped Republicans get out of scrapes or get an important appointment with a well-place phone call or two.
The late Pittsburgh Mayor Sophie Masloff, as much a Democrat as Mrs. Hillman was a Republican, served as Elsie’s maid of honor in a 2005 wedding anniversary celebration.
Bottom Line: This column is written as 10 candidates for the GOP nomination for President debate in Cleveland Thursday evening. Ten “suits” each trying to prove he is more anti-abortion than the others. Not one of the other nine said a word, when Trump was called out for saying nasties about women. Likely the ultimate GOP 2016 nominee will be far right.
We will never know if Mrs. Hillman would finally have forsaken Party for her causes.
Tom Ridge to be our governor her greatest accomplishment. Well, as time goes by he is turning out to not be so “great.”
The pension crisis goes back all the way to him. He isn’t so popular with organized labor in Erie because their jobs are gone. His tenure at DHS was the “code yellow” farce as part of the hysteria to keep Bush as President. He was an effective tool who is now cashing in on all these boards of corporations and lobbying.
Tom Ridge is a shady character whose Viet Nam war record is never scrutinized but he was supposedly drafted in 1968 while in law school, turned down officer training and by 1969 he was promoted to Staff Sergeant. So in one year he goes from E-1 to E-6. This is certainly an enlisted career trajectory like none I have ever seen in the U.S. military.
All of his citations are unit and some people who served under him found him to be incompetent. He certainly chose a military service more honorable than those he would later serve under such as Cheney and Bush but something is not legitimate in terms of his advancements.