The local daily paper led the day we talked with Hein’s announcement that he was not running.
And what did Hinchey think of the idea of Hein as a congressman?
“Good man,” he said. “But, frankly, when he came to me for advice about a year ago, I discouraged him.”
“Really?”
“I didn’t think he was experienced enough,” Hinchey said. “But I think he’s done a terrific job as executive.”
Memory can warp perspective. When Hinchey ran the first time for assemblyman in 1972, he was a 34-year-old lower-rank administrator in a state bureaucracy. He had never held elected office. Two years later he knocked off a three-term Republican assemblyman.
The long, long road ran from Albany to Washington and several times around the world through parts of five decades for this much-traveled congressman. Now it comes down to memories, for better or worse.
And didn’t the time go by quickly?
