Senator Vance Hartke's daughter running for Congress in Virginia

Only a few of our readers are likely to remember Indiana's US Senator Vance Hartke.  The late senator was quite a character.

First elected to the US Senate from Indiana in the recession year of 1958, Vance Hartke won two more terms in the Democratic landslide year of 1964 and then squeaked by in the recessionary year of 1970.  He was defeated for a fourth term in 1976 by Richard Lugar.

Now, his daughter, Anita, is seeking office.  A profile by a Virginia newspaper highlights the similarities of father and daughter. Allison Brophy Champion reports:

Seventh District Congressional candidate Anita Hartke, a Democrat, is weary of war, like her father was.

[ ... ]

Hartke, 48, spoke quickly and with apparent passion about her stance on the war as she waited for Gov. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, to arrive at the Culpeper Country Club for a local fund-raiser last week.

On the eve of the announcement that she would, in fact, face four-term Congressman Eric Cantor, R-Richmond, in November’s election, Hartke, the relatively new chairwoman of the Culpeper County Democratic Committee, was full of energy, crumbling a piece of paper in her hand as she kept watch for Dean.

[ ... ]

“I come from a political family,” Hartke said of her dad, the late Sen. Vance Hartke, a Democrat from Indiana who served from 1959 to 1977 and ran for president on anti-war platform in 1972, at the height of Vietnam.

[ ... ]

A divorced mother of three who was born in Georgetown and raised in Virginia, Hartke said she is not “naïve” in thinking she can raise as much money as the incumbent.

[ ... ]

“My father was a major peace activist who was one of the first people to go out against the Vietnam War,” Hartke said. “He spoke to 600,000 people at the Washington Mall and broke his friendship with Lyndon Johnson over his stand against the Vietnam War.”

[ ... ]

Another parallel between she and dad, Hartke said, is the fact that both started their political careers as chairperson of a local Democratic Committee — she in Culpeper, he in Indiana.

“You asked me how do I expect to win? My father was county chair in Indiana, he became mayor and U.S. senator within five years after that,” Hartke said. “He pushed grassroots politics, representing the people like Harry Truman.”

Politics is about providing a forum for people to have their ideas heard, she said, instead of being “trampled or ignored” like under the current leadership.

“These concerns need to be heard,” she said. “My father won in a Republican red state — landslide victories. We’re going to have that again.”

The 1970 victory over Richard Roudebush was decided by one vote per precinct - not exactly a landslide. Issues involving the recount sought in the Hartke-Roudebush went to the US Supreme Court.

Comments

[Mike Dooley]

How could we ever forget the only Hoosier politican to ever be indicted for playing the piano inside a polling place? He, like Randall "Front Porch" Harmon will always have a page in the book of Indiana political history.

[Beatrice Williams-Rude]

Senator Vance Hartke, wrote a splendid, all-encompassing history of Vietnem, "The American Compass in Vietnam," which, unfortunately came out at the same time as the Tet Offensive and thus never received the attention it deserved. Sen. Hartke was a courageous opponent of the Vietnam adventure.
I had a copy of his book which disappeared (among many other treasures) when my apartment was trashed. I want to get a copy for my step-son but can't find it. Help, please!