Prologue
Welcome to Finally Home.
I don’t think anyone really expected it. I certainly didn’t. (chuckles) He had run a doomed campaign twenty years prior and lost. He ran again eight years prior and lost earlier. So when he announced in Nineteen Ninety-One, no one was really expecting much. Then again, at the beginning of Ninety-One, everyone was expecting George Bush to win.
-Former Governor Bill Clinton, Democrat-Arkansas, June 5, 2007.
My parents were, and are, politically active. I didn’t really pay much attention to it at the time. I was ten, for Pete’s Sake! As I got older though, I got more interested. I’m not going to run for office or anything. I’m just going to use my position to help others as much as I can.
-Polly Klaas, on the set of Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods, April 8, 2004.
Everyone thought he was nuts. So did I. He was out of the Senate, out the public eye and the last two times he ran didn’t go so well. But Ninety-Two, it was something else entirely. It was a shift for the party, the country, the world.
-Historian Cornell West, Speech at Harvard, May 15, 2012.
May 12, 1991
“I’m thinking about running for president again.”
Theresa looked at her father, gave a little smile and nodded. “So you’ve said, dad.”
It was by chance Theresa had decided to visit her father. After all she had been through the past several years: her relationship with alcohol, her children from a relationship with a boyfriend. It was becoming too much. Recently, she had tried to become sober again. If not for herself, then for her family. She just needed to focus on something, along with her family.
He smiled and said, “Terry, your mother and I have talked about it and we feel that we can’t put you through that.”
Theresa put a hand on her father’s. “Dad, I don’t want you and mom to not do something on my account. Twenty years ago, you lost because you didn’t have a chance to clearly articulate your message. You’ve learned a lot since then.”
He shook his head. “I learned that eight years ago and look where that got me.”
“Eight years ago, Vice President Mondale was the front runner from the beginning. There was no way you were going to beat him, let alone President Reagan.”
Her father thought about it. “President Bush is still popular.”
“For now. You know that popularity can wane. Besides, George Bush is not Richard Nixon.”
The more they talked about it, the more they both knew that it was going to happen. A week later, at the campus of Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota, Former Senator George McGovern announced that he would, once again, seek the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
I don’t think anyone really expected it. I certainly didn’t. (chuckles) He had run a doomed campaign twenty years prior and lost. He ran again eight years prior and lost earlier. So when he announced in Nineteen Ninety-One, no one was really expecting much. Then again, at the beginning of Ninety-One, everyone was expecting George Bush to win.
-Former Governor Bill Clinton, Democrat-Arkansas, June 5, 2007.
My parents were, and are, politically active. I didn’t really pay much attention to it at the time. I was ten, for Pete’s Sake! As I got older though, I got more interested. I’m not going to run for office or anything. I’m just going to use my position to help others as much as I can.
-Polly Klaas, on the set of Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods, April 8, 2004.
Everyone thought he was nuts. So did I. He was out of the Senate, out the public eye and the last two times he ran didn’t go so well. But Ninety-Two, it was something else entirely. It was a shift for the party, the country, the world.
-Historian Cornell West, Speech at Harvard, May 15, 2012.
May 12, 1991
“I’m thinking about running for president again.”
Theresa looked at her father, gave a little smile and nodded. “So you’ve said, dad.”
It was by chance Theresa had decided to visit her father. After all she had been through the past several years: her relationship with alcohol, her children from a relationship with a boyfriend. It was becoming too much. Recently, she had tried to become sober again. If not for herself, then for her family. She just needed to focus on something, along with her family.
He smiled and said, “Terry, your mother and I have talked about it and we feel that we can’t put you through that.”
Theresa put a hand on her father’s. “Dad, I don’t want you and mom to not do something on my account. Twenty years ago, you lost because you didn’t have a chance to clearly articulate your message. You’ve learned a lot since then.”
He shook his head. “I learned that eight years ago and look where that got me.”
“Eight years ago, Vice President Mondale was the front runner from the beginning. There was no way you were going to beat him, let alone President Reagan.”
Her father thought about it. “President Bush is still popular.”
“For now. You know that popularity can wane. Besides, George Bush is not Richard Nixon.”
The more they talked about it, the more they both knew that it was going to happen. A week later, at the campus of Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota, Former Senator George McGovern announced that he would, once again, seek the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
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