Missourian opts out of public life
ST. LOUIS -- Returning to the hometown that he so often said shaped his character, an emotional Representative Richard A. Gephardt yesterday announced he will retire from public life when his term expires at the end of the year.
Only hours after a crushing defeat in the Iowa caucuses drove him from the Democratic presidential contest, the former House Democratic leader said he had not even thought about endorsing any of his rivals, or what his next career will be.
He broke down when he mentioned his wife, Jane, and their three children and had to pause several seconds before saying they "are my life. To them, I'll always be grateful."
Gephardt spoke to reporters and a group of about 50 staff members and friends, most of whom wept, at America's Center, a convention and sports complex.
"I haven't had a chance to do anything but what I'm doing and I'm having a little trouble with that," he said. "We'll figure out the rest at a later date."
Of the Iowa results, he said: "The enormous voter turnout showed the great strength and the determination of the Democratic Party to reclaim the White House, and I accept the results, with the knowledge that I gave this campaign everything that I had in me." In 1988, he won the caucuses but later dropped out of the race.
Gephardt's candidacy was always something of a long shot, despite his stature in the party. What surprised even his campaign staff, many of them veterans of his 1988 effort, was the collapse at the end.
A "murder-suicide" is the analogy used by Gephardt's senior advisers to describe the simultaneous plunges of Gephardt and former Vermont governor Howard Dean in the Iowa campaign's final week. The Dean campaign provoked a brief exchange of negative TV ads that zeroed in on major vulnerabilities of each -- Gephardt's support for the Iraq war and Dean's endorsement of Medicare cuts in 1995.
They became foils to the late-surging Senator John Edwards and his positive above-the-fray message.
Labor union members pumped up Gephardt at every stop, but the boisterous rallies may also have reinforced for many Iowans the image of the Missourian as a politician of the past. Gephardt told reporters yesterday he was proud and grateful for labor's support.
In Gephardt's case, the massive organizational effort undertaken on his behalf may have been washed away by the flood of new voters at the caucuses.
Brett Voorhies, the steelworker who coordinated the Iowa effort of the Alliance for Justice, a consortium of labor groups that backed Gephardt, said he doubted the coalition of unions would make a similar commitment to any other candidate before the Democratic nomination. But he added: "The alliance is still alive, and we will continue to work to make sure our agenda is on the table," perhaps in upcoming congressional races.In his last 11 months in Congress and as he returns to private life, Gephardt will continue to be an advocate for universal health care, trade reform, and other issues. Gephardt will have served 14 terms, or 28 years, in the House, 13 of those years in leadership posts. His exit suddenly opens up the Feb. 3 Missouri primary, which with 86 delegates is the largest prize of the seven contests that day. No other candidate had made any real effort against Gephardt in his home state.
"I think it's anybody's game in the state of Missouri," May Scheve, chairwoman of the Missouri Democratic Party, told reporters before Gephardt's remarks. She had recently returned from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where she was one of the hundreds of Missourians who campaigned for Gephardt.
Gephardt's name will still appear on the Missouri ballot, and Scheve said "it will be interesting to see how many people vote for him" even though he has withdrawn. She called Gephardt "a great inspiration and mover and shaker" in Missouri politics.
