The Harris-Walz election campaign moves towards next week’s Democratic convention in Chicago on a euphoric wave, and Irish-American Democrats are excited, too.
While the Irish-tinted characters and yarns that colour the vast canvas of US politics are oft-told and may reflect a fading 20th-century power base, the Irish-American voice remains significant. And as an unforgettable, lurching 2024 presidential election prepares to enter its crucial autumn phase, a number of prominent Irish-American political and public figures gathered for a virtual rallying call on Monday evening. It was designed to further energise the Irish-American electorate and cohere their vote in what will, come November, become a dogfight for every single ballot paper in the crucial battleground states.
“If you look around the country you will see we are running a joyful, people-powered campaign,” Rob Flaherty, a Boston Irish American – just back from a trip to Castlegregory – told the audience after being introduced by Alex Nason, who co-ordinated the event for the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz campaign.
“That is what this election is going to be about: it is going to be about friends and neighbours talking to their friends and neighbours, showing folks loudly and proudly that you are supporting the vice-president. And to me there is something fundamentally Irish about that – finding common ground with folks, engaging in deep and meaningful ways with folks. We are the underdogs, and we are playing like we are behind. It is going to come down to 50,000 votes on either side.”
It was, Pennsylvania congressman Brendan Boyle quipped – in quoting Bill Clinton – “the greatest collection of Irish Americans since the last Notre Dame home football game”. Boyle’s father was born and raised in Glencolmcille, Co Donegal, and he told the gathering that as well as their Democratic allegiance, they were “linked by values and culture and a little bit of nostalgia” before suggesting that, regardless of shared Irish ancestry, “one of the greatest foreign policy achievements in American history in the last 50 years is the Good Friday [Belfast] Agreement”.
That era, along with the Irish heritage that Joe Biden wears as a badge of identity, and the touchstone memory of the Kennedy administration, were invoked as the speakers sought to place the evolving Irish-American story in the context of this election. But the common theme with each of the speakers, from New Jersey governor Phil Murphy to Lynda Carter, star of the 1970s Wonder Woman television show, to the versatile House of Cards actor Michael Kelly, whose grandfather emigrated from Donegal to dig roads in Philadelphia, was the deep solemnity they attach to their ancestral stories. Rory Kennedy, the documentarian, spoke of a recent visit to New Ross with her family, following in the footsteps of her uncle, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, during his celebrated visit to Ireland in 1963.
“Jackie [Kennedy] always said it was the happiest four days of his time in office. He was deeply moved by the experience there,” she said. “So much so that when Jack died, the only thing he had in his pocket was a rosary. And Jackie decided to send that rosary to New Ross. And that rosary – there’s a teeny little museum basically in the backyard of where my family came from, a very sweet little museum. And in that museum is the rosary that was in Jack’s pocket. And I tell that story because our Irish heritage is so deeply meaningful to our entire family.”
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Tim Walz had hardly been informed of his elevation to vice-presidential pick for Harris than his Irish bona fides were located to the Sullivans of Wexford. Dan Kildee, the Michigan congressman who had just returned from a family visit to Ireland with 34 relatives to commemorate a tragic family bereavement, told the gathering that “the other part of this which I think is connected to our Irish heritage is that we find joy and purpose in the biggest challenges we face. And I don’t think there is anything more that separates Kamala Harris and Tim Walz from the other ticket than the embrace of pure joy. America is looking for that – a chance to be optimistic.”
Terry McAuliffe, the former national chair of the Democratic National Committee and former governor of Virginia, will attend his 13th national convention of the party next week.
“We can’t have Trump. I think we all know that. The insanity of four more years of Donald Trump. He tells [Vladimir] Putin to go ahead and invade Nato countries. He wouldn’t go to a cemetery where the military of those who served and wore the cloth of our country had died. He wouldn’t go visit those graves and said those who lost lives in battle were losers and suckers. It’s disgraceful.
“We’ve got to win this election. It is going to be close. We all remember 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote. We didn’t get the prize. Seven of the last eight elections, Democrats have won the popular votes. But we need to get 270 electoral votes. And we are fighting over a very small slice of undecided voters who are out there. And we need the Irish because God gave us the gift of the gab. And we are good talkers. There is nobody better at the door. The only problem is we spend too long at each door – you can’t spend an hour at every door.”
But rapping the door knockers and talking is what this wing of the Democratic Party intends on doing over the next three months.
“I’m from Georgia, right,” Michael Kelly told the gathering. “And call it a blue state if you will but it is very mixed there. A lot of my friends are from the other side of the aisle. And what I want to tell everyone to do is: talk. Have conversations with these people. Ask them are they better off, talk to them about all the issues that matter to them, about women’s rights, about personal freedoms. That’s what we are fighting for here. So … get out there and talk.”
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