Bell at that point was the face of Republican establishment. A partner in St. John, Ronder and Bell, the county’s most prestigious and influential law firm, he was the epitome of everything Hinchey detested. Appearing overbearing, smug and arrogant, Bell wasn’t popular with so-called “liberal media,” as if he cared. Bile was mutual between the candidates, a contest featuring arrogance and insolence. Hinchey attacked Bell’s banking connections. Bell brought up Hinchey’s rowdy youth in Saugerties, the Black Cat gang of wanna-be hoods, the fights, the judge ordering him into the Navy.
In the teeth of a Nixon landslide, Hinchey cut Bell’s plurality by some 6,000 votes. It was still a good whuppin’ and most thought they’d seen the last of the Saugerties upstart.
Hinchey, who tends toward revisionist history, would say later that the 1972 campaign proved to him Bell could be beaten, a judgment by no means universal. Displaying the trademark tenacity that would define his career, Hinchey reloaded for 1974.
In the beginning of the year, there were certainly no guarantees. State Sen. Charlie Cook told me he had no real appreciation for what Watergate meant to grass-roots Republicans until (as a second-term assemblyman) he began campaigning that fall. “It was amazing,” he said. “Republicans I’d known all my life, people who had voted for me, friends of my parents, said they weren’t going to vote at all. They were angry, embarrassed by what was going on in Washington. I was re-elected, but barely.”
Cook hailed from dairy-land Delaware County, where even the cows voted Republican.
Hinchey, the revisionist, always dismissed Watergate as a factor in his second campaign against Bell. He insisted it was his anti-establishment populist message and zealous campaign workers, etc. that turned the tide. The record shows Hinchey’s totals changed only marginally between ’72 and ‘74 while Bell lost some 10,000 votes. Hinchey won by about 1,700, his closest election until 1994. It doesn’t take a political scientist to figure out what really happened. Nonetheless, a long, successful political career had been launched.
What now?
Would-be successors to Hinchey’s throne would be foolish to wait until redistricting is announced. There are miles to go and precious little time to get organized.
What a bitter article! Excuse me while I go shower the sentiment off.
No, that is correct Mr. painted-on-smiling-face on North Front Street: you are the media, and not only are you not here to make anyone’s life better–you are sometimes there to wreck lives and not give a crap–like “my man Kirby” at your old employer. You are the media–there to create scandal even when it’s not there. Not “here” of course–but “there.” You know–in the Hurley Ave. Hinterlands of Yore.
Oh–and you forgot the whole theme of Carnwright’s opponent, built upon the unreported bloggate of 2009-2010–which involved that guy that opponent’s wife into whose face cast a drink at one time(your sendoff of him was a lot better and he didn’t deserve it). Just have to remind these Alzheimer types–or is it “Pre-Alzheimer’s”(lest some shrink shrink YOU uh, prematurely). I’ll look for a column on that of course–aha, hopefully before I have to declare myself in Alzheimer’s land. I’m betting to see it first on the next Oprah–yes that’s right, I said OPRAH.