It was 1968, and a young Tom Foley had joined the caravan of Eugene McCarthy for President, bound for Chicago and the Democratic National Convention.
Within days, Foley found himself staring down troops and bayonets, watching as police and antiwar demonstrators battled outside the convention center. Inside, a bitter nomination fight left the party in tatters and paved the way for Richard Nixon's victory in November.
That time would forever change Foley's political outlook - up to and including his current pursuit of a U.S. Senate seat - but not in the usual way.
"I saw a whole generation of idealistic individuals turn on Hubert Humphrey, one of the most liberal champions this country ever saw," Foley said. "I saw people devouring each other, who all believed in worthwhile goals. It showed me how politics can be so skewed that it becomes easier to rip someone apart than work together."
The result pushed him back from a more liberal agenda toward "what is realistically and politically acceptable - what can be accomplished . . . without causing a lot of divisiveness," he said.
Yet some say he has exacerbated divisions within the DFL. Despite 16 years of party backing during his tenure as Ramsey County attorney, Foley now calls the DFL "an elitist group of extremists." In June, he lashed state convention delegates for spouting the "same old tired Democratic rhetoric." Since then, he has stumped across the state decrying the party-endorsed candidate, Ann Wynia, as an "ultraliberal Wellstone Democrat." He does not intend it as a compliment.
Foley describes himself as a centrist, championing the politics of what some critics term the "mushy middle." Indeed, Foley's agenda resembles a political smorgasbord. From the Republican plate: less government, more law-and order, strict welfare reform and an end to deficit spending. From Democrats: more health care reform, less military spending, protection of abortion rights and funding for crime prevention. From independents: ethics reform and an end to PAC-financed campaigns.
Together, Foley says, it represents a pragmatic approach to politics. "People are tired of extremism on both sides," he said. "They want someone who can work with both sides."
It is a pitch he made at media outlets across the Iron Range on one recent three-day campaign swing, taking frequent swipes at his party and opponent. The tour was oddly devoid of press conferences, fund-raisers, bean feeds, staged events - the traditional accoutrements of a statewide campaign. It was a no frills, tightly timed procession from one tiny newspaper office to another, broken by occasional stops at radio and TV stations.
On this trip, Foley traveled with only three people - his 15-year-old son, Jordan, a driver and a reporter. Several times he stopped for surreptitious meetings with supporters - mostly DFL officials who say they cannot yet afford to be seen coming out for Foley. Aside from a parade in Duluth and a couple of diner stops, there was little time for mixing with the public.
Campaign manager John Wodele said the strategy is one of both design and necessity. He admitted freely that Foley is running a media campaign: "If it doesn't get us free media, we don't do it."
That's partly because Wodele believes in media campaigns - it's the way he organized Bill Clinton's successful state campaign two years ago, which Foley co-chaired. And it's partly because they can't hope to match Wynia's money or organization. When you've alienated much of the party faithful, campaigning can be a lonely business indeed.
"I've taken some heat from the party," said Jill Sletten, a political consultant for Foley. "We're not earning a lot of friends on this one."
At the Scenic Range News in Bovey, Foley sat at a '50s-style, apple-green Formica table, flanked by a baby crib on one side and an ancient, hulking linotype machine on the other. Editor Douglas Deal, whose domain this is, offered Foley fresh coffee and conservative opinions.
"Your opponent is a very nice lady, but she scares the hell out of me," Deal said. "I asked her if white males should have special legislation to protect them. She said white males already dominate."
Foley paused a moment, then told Deal that "jobs should go to the best candidate, not gender- or race-specific." He also jumped at the chance to take another swipe at Wynia, saying that she wants a "government-controlled, single payer health plan," while he supports a more modest model, similar to that of Republican Sen. Dave Durenberger, whose seat he is running for. Wynia, Foley added, "is just mouthing whatever the party wants her to say."
Later, Foley said he doesn't want to come off as mean, but he does intend to run an aggressive campaign and will not pull punches because Wynia is a woman.
"I don't buy this whole business that this seat should go to a woman this time," he said, referring to the Minnesota Million campaign for a female senator. "I'm not buying into gender politics."
Remarks like that have earned him the rancor of Minnesota's feminist press, but friends say that it is undeserved, that the Foley they know has quietly advocated women's issues for years.
"I was amazed to hear that," said Sue Haigh, a chief deputy attorney under Foley, of the rancor. "He appointed me chief deputy 10 years ago, and I can assure you, there weren't many women in high county-attorney positions across the country. It's just not in him to discriminate based on gender or race."
Although it got off to a rocky start, his term in office has been marked by innovation, Haigh said. "Half his management team is made up of women," she said. He is credited by many with dragging an antiquated office into the 20th century, creating specialized prosecution units and hiring diverse, talented employees. He has also been accused by some of riding roughshod over longtime employees who were holdovers from his predecessor.
Those in his own party praise his political and prosecutorial skills, but say he has alienated many with his stand against the party and Wynia and will not soon be forgiven.
"His reputation as a county attorney and a public official is first-rate," said Sam Kaplan, chairman of the Wellstone Alliance and a supporter of Wynia. "I've always found him to be a person of principle, very outspoken and vigorous about what he believes in. But he should not be running against the party's endorsed candidate. That's where he went wrong."
Hennepin County Board Chairman Mark Andrew, a lifelong friend of Foley's, said Foley sometimes is misjudged. Andrew managed Foley's first campaign for Ramsey County attorney when Andrew was barely out of graduate school.
"He's a very private person, a very loyal friend," Andrew said. "He's not the typical backslapping Irish pol. Sometimes, people interpret that reserve as arrogance because he's not gladhanding everyone in the room."
Foley's campaign van rolled down a stretch of highway through the Arrowhead region, past thick knots of farmers chatting idly in a field as they waited for a livestock auction to begin.
Most politicians on a three-day campaign tour would have been irresistibly drawn to the captive audience. Foley glanced at the crowd from his seat near the driver, but gave no signal to stop. The van sped on and Foley returned to his thoughts.
When he stops at a coffee shop, he chats amiably with strangers, but seems almost abashed at pressing them on political issues. "They're eating lunch," he said after one such stop. "I don't want to bother them."
Wodele, Foley's assistant in the county attorney's office and his closest friend, said Foley has always been reserved and somewhat intense.
"It comes out in a shyness, almost a withdrawn posture at times," Wodele said. "but underneath that is someone who's very impassioned."
Now Foley's campaign manager, Wodele is among a close circle of friends that Foley has maintained since his earliest days growing up in Wabasha, Minn.
Aside from solitary pursuits, such as reading, fishing and hiking, it is the company of those friends and relatives that Foley treasures most.
"I have a very close family," he said. "I see or talk to them all three or four times a day." That includes even his ex-wife, Kathy, the mother of Foley's two sons. Although the marriage ended 12 years ago, friends say he still talks to her several times daily.
Even those who have known Foley his whole life say they don't quite understand why such a private person would pursue such a public career.
Foley says he doesn't understand it himself, except that he's never known any other way of life.
His family is one steeped in Democratic politics and public service. His grandfather was a close ally of then-Gov. Floyd Olson. His father, Judge Daniel Foley, served 10 years on the state appellate court and worked closely with President John Kennedy to gain veterans' support for the nuclear test ban treaty. One uncle became a Maryland congressman. Uncle Gene was a deputy commissioner of commerce under President Lyndon Johnson. Uncle Pat was a state U.S. attorney. Most everyone in the Foley family is a lawyer.
Rounding out the law-and-politics bent of the family was his mother, whom Foley called the "social conscience of the family."
"She was a very strong voice for peace and justice," he recalled. "When a certain aspect of the [Vietnam] war took place, my mother hung black crepe in the window, put a black candle in the window. People just weren't doing that in Wabasha, Minn., in the '60s. When my father, whose politics were more conservative, got home, we all had a very interesting discussion."
It was his mother's sense of justice that would, years later, spur Foley's involvement in the plight of Soviet Jews barred from emigrating to Israel. In the early 1980s, he founded Minnesota Elected Officials for Soviet Jewry, a group that used diplomatic channels to try to change Soviet policy. He later traveled to the Soviet Union in an attempt to save one Soviet Jew from a Siberian prison camp. A decade later, he remains involved in an international lawyers' human rights committee and continues to monitor human rights violations in Albania.
In 1988, Foley hit what he calls the lowest point in his life: an arrest for drunken driving. The arrest and aftermath were "the toughest thing I've ever been through," he said. Foley earned praise from many for his candor and public apology."You have to pay the consequences, and I did," he said. Since then, he said, he has pushed quietly for tougher drunken-driving laws, "but it wasn't something I championed visibly because I didn't want it to look like I was jumping on an issue to take away from what I had done."
He has also stayed active in national politics, founding the state Democratic Leadership Council and chairing Clinton's Minnesota campaign.
And in addition to all the reserve and all the talk about public service, there is another side to Foley that Andrew gently calls chutzpah.
"What makes a 26-year-old kid a few years out of law school take on an incumbent that was supposed to be unbeatable?" Andrew said, referring to Foley's first campaign against William Randall, which Foley lost.
"What makes a 46-year-old county attorney who's never run a statewide race think he can take out a high-quality, DFL-endorsed candidate with a strong record?" Andrew said. "Again, there's a little chutzpah there."
Health care: Would you support a Clinton-style managed competition reform, a Canadian style single-payer plan or some other version of health care reform?
Advocates reliance on market competition as the principal reform mechanism, using managed competition with limited government involvement. Consumers, both individuals and business, would buy health care through voluntary purchasing pools. Government would provide coverage for the poor and subsidize coverage for the working poor with a goal toward coverage for everyone - either from the government or from the private sector.
U.S. military: What role should the military play in Bosnia, Rwanda and other countries torn by civil strife? In general, what role should the U.S. play in the post-Cold War era?
Supports coordinating efforts with United Nations and other countries. "Before becoming involved in the world's trouble spots, the United States must have a strategy for leaving an area without the long-term presence of American troops ... the president needs to more clearly define the United States' role in the new world order. I believe a foreign policy that promotes democracy and stability will best serve our interest."
Welfare: What changes in the welfare system, if any, would you support?
Advocates two-year time limit for welfare eligibility and requiring minors to live at home and graduate from high school. Would offer incentives to work, including access to health care and child care and use of Earned Income Tax Credit. Would provide education and training to help welfare recipients upgrade job skills. Would strengten child support enforcement and establish national databank to track negligent parents.
Economy: What should the federal government do to spur the U.S. economy, both in the short term and long term?
Would push to reduce the deficit; advocated free trade to open foreign markets to American goods and services. "Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Minnesota exporters will have new and important opportunities to build markets in Mexico, especially in agriculture, electronics and services. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) offers even bigger opportunities, especially for services, investment and grain producers . . . the simple logic underlying my support for these free trade measures is that every time we expand markets through lower levels of regional and global protection, the U.S. gains more than the rest of the world because it is a larger trader."
Agriculture: The 5-year Farm Bill will be on Congress' worklist next year. What changes, if any, would you make in the amount of money spent on farm support? Are there any farm programs that should be eliminated?
"I support current levels of spending for our agriculture programs. I believe the programs could do a better job of targeting support to those who need it most. Too often, large corporate farmers are the primary beneficiaries of federal agriculture programs." Would overhaul federal milk marketing system.
Urban issues: What role should the federal government play in the revitalization of cities? Specifically, what should Congress do about the increasing need for housing for the poor.
Advocates reduction of federal deficit to encourage job growth in cities; would push for health care package to provide an incentive for urban poor to rejoin the labor market and decrease health care costs borne by city and county; governments; would push crime bill to give cities more resources to fight crime; would put higher priority on rebuilding infrastructure; would promote home ownership by the poor; would convert closed military bases into homeless shelters and low-income housing.
Federal deficit: How would you cut the deficit? Would you be willing to cut entitlements like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare?
Proposes "Cut and Invest" program. Would consider cutting subsidies, tax breaks and trade protections that insulate certain industries from competition. Would increase royalties and extending holding fees for mining companies on public lands for a $1.2 billion savings over five years and repealing special tax credits for firms operating on U.S. possessions for savings of $21.5 billion over five years. Advocates establishing commission that would propose a package of spending cuts that would have to be voted up or down without amendment.
Crime: Should repeat, violent offenders be locked up for life? What policies would you pursue regarding the increasing availability of guns?
Supports Brady Bill and ban on assault weapons. "As a prosecutor in Minnesota for 16 years, I am well aware that law-abiding citizens who own firearms are not the problem." Says existing laws should be aggressively enforced. Would set up federal task force to go after firearms traffickers the same way drug traffickers were targeted.
Family: How do you define family values and how far should the federal government go in its attempts to strengthen those values?
"I advocate policies and programs that reward moderate, mainstream values most Americans live by - family, community, work and responsibility." Would push for welfare reform, stricter child support enforcement, tougher penalties for domestic abuse, fully fund Head Start and early childhood programs, encourage people to get involved in community activities.
Nuclear: Minnesota just emerged from a struggle over the storage of nuclear waste, a struggle engendered by the federal government's foot-dragging on its promise to develop a national waste storage site. What would you do to speed this process?
Believes government must move faster in developing a single repository site. Would have the military, which already stores its own nuclear wastes, store nuclear wastes from states rather then develop above-ground storage sites across the country. Would encourage long-term development of renewable energy sources, including wind, wood/biomass, hydropower.
Leadership: What special qualities of leadership do you bring to the office you are seeking?
"I am a proactive, highly-principled, action-oriented leader. When assaults against women skyrocketed in the late 1980s, I crafted and successfully petitioned the Minnesota Legislature to pass the "patterned sex offender law." This law allows enhanced penalties ... for sex offenders whose criminal sexual behavior is so ingrained and the risk of re-offending is so great that long-term controls are needed ... Before this law was enacted, I was the only county attorney in Minnesota to aggressively use the psychopathic personality law to indefinitely commit sexual predators to state hospitals ... This is the kind of leadership I have provided in the criminal justice system. It is the kind of leadership I pledge to provide as U.S. Senator." --