Frenemies: A Love Story
Boston
TO paraphrase a sometime-friend of my father: “There they go again.”
Twice in their debate on Wednesday, President Obama and Mitt Romney brought up the names of my father, Tip O’Neill, and Ronald Reagan, the Republican icon, asserting that the relationship between Reagan and my father, a Democrat who was speaker of the House for most of Reagan’s presidency, should serve as a model for how political leaders can differ deeply on issues, and yet work together for the good of the country.
It is not a new idea. As Washington has become increasingly partisan, and increasingly deadlocked, a misty aura has grown around the O’Neill and Reagan years. That mist obscures some hard truths — and harder words.
Let’s not forget my father’s blunt descriptions of his ideological opposite as “Herbert Hoover with a smile” or “a cheerleader for selfishness.” He referred to the village of Reagan’s Irish forebears — Ballyporeen — as “the valley of the small potatoes.” Two phrases I often heard him use about Reagan: “Trust, but verify,” and “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” My father was not pleased to be compared by the president to the character in the video game Pac-Man — “a round thing that gobbles up money,” or to being the butt of G.O.P. political advertising.
They were two men from humble Irish-American backgrounds who did not back down from a fight, and their worldviews were poles apart. As someone who watched the back-and-forth from a front-row seat, I know they each believed deeply in what they fought for — and that each had deep concern about where the other’s political views could take this country. My father was not simply tossing off a glib phrase when he said that Reagan wanted to rejigger this nation’s tax structure to throw “one big Christmas party for the rich.” Tip O’Neill detested Reagan-driven policies that left more money in the pockets of the wealthy — and cut the social programs for the elderly and the poor that he fought so hard to create.
As speaker of the House, he was obliged to fight what he and his party believed were disastrous steps being taken by the Republicans. My father fought tirelessly to see that Reagan’s policies did not run roughshod over the disenfranchised. The president fought too, pushing back against spending he believed was out of control, and a social system he thought created dependency.
On occasion, these dueling philosophies brought both men to the mat — to the point where neither would back down. My father stood firm against deep cuts and other proposed changes to Social Security, believing in his core that the elderly poor would bear too great a burden. “I haven’t been in public service all my life to watch anybody rip up everything I’ve stood for,” I remember him saying. The political battle that resulted, in 1982, was among the most bruising my father and Reagan ever had.
In the fall of 1986, they waged war again over the renewal of the Clean Water Act. Just months before my father retired, after 34 years in the House, leaders in Congress hammered out a compromise agreement that seemed to satisfy all sides; the bill passed in the House by vote of 408 to zero, and in the Senate by 96 to none. When the president later vetoed the bill, my father didn’t relent — urging his former colleagues to override the veto from the sidelines. I remember some of what he said at the time. None of it is printable.
But such unyielding standoffs were, in fact, rare. What both men deplored more than the other’s political philosophy was stalemate, and a country that was so polarized by ideology and party politics that it could not move forward. There were tough words and important disagreements over everything from taxation to Medicare and military spending. But there was yet a stronger commitment to getting things done.
That commitment to put country ahead of personal belief and party loyalty is what Mr. Obama, Mr. Romney and millions of Americans miss so much right now. It allowed these two men to bend enough, even after their knockdown fight in 1982, to forge an agreement that helped save Social Security — something both men knew needed to be done. It meant that Reagan could support an increase in federal gas taxes, which would fund infrastructure improvements that both he and my father were convinced would put thousands of unemployed Americans back to work. My father hated to see the House cut social programs, even as he recognized that the president had been elected by millions of Americans and had earned the right to steer the country.
Historic tax reforms, seven tax increases, a strong united front that brought down the Soviet Union — all came of a commitment to find common ground. While neither man embraced the other’s worldview, each respected the other’s right to hold it. Each respected the other as a man.
President Reagan knew my father treasured Boston College, so he was the centerpiece of a dinner at the Washington Hilton Hotel that raised $1 million to build the O’Neill Library there. When Reagan was shot at that same hotel, my father went to his hospital room to pray by his bed.
No, my father and Reagan weren’t close friends. Famously, after 6 p.m. on quite a few work days, they would sit down for drinks at the White House. But it wasn’t the drinks or the conversation that allowed American government to work. Instead, it was a stubborn refusal not to allow fund-raisers, activists, party platforms or ideological chasms to stand between them and actions — tempered and improved by compromise — that kept this country moving.
I don’t blame Mr. Obama or Mr. Romney for getting nostalgic about that.
Thomas P. O’Neill III, the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1983, is the founder and chief execuctive of the public affairs firm O’Neill and Associates.
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