Delaney tells family separation story, talks American dream

KEENE, N.H. — On Tuesday night, in the new wing of the Keene Public Library, Maryland Congressman John Delaney finally got to tell the story of his grandfather, who was separated from his family at Ellis Island because of a physical disability.

Delaney attempted to share his grandfather's story midway through the first of two Democratic debates during a discussion of family separation at the U.S.-Mexico border, but was cut off by NBC News moderator Lester Holt.

"I tried," Delaney reflected on his performance in the debate. "I had to fight for every minute."

While Holt did not relent, the crowd of 30-50 people in Keene, New Hampshire proved a more receptive audience. Delaney told voters how his English grandfather, who lost his left arm as a child from a World War I-era landmine, immigrated with his family to the United States in 1923, but was temporarily detained because of his disability. Although immigration law at the time prohibited the entry of disabled persons, the immigration judge who ruled on the case, in a fateful coincidence for Delaney's grandfather, also had one arm and allowed him to stay.

"The one-armed judged looked favorably on the one-armed boy," Delaney said. "It was a little bit of shared humanity at the border and but for that, I wouldn't be in this country."

John Delaney spoke to 30-50 voters in the new wing of the Keene Public Library on Tuesday night, crediting his grandfather's entry to the United States as "a little bit of shared humanity at the border."

Delaney, the son of a union electrician who attended Columbia University on an IBEW scholarship, became the youngest CEO in the history of the New York Stock Exchange and then served in Congress for six years, went on to describe his life as the embodiment of the American dream. He said however that stories like his are "much harder today."

While Delaney is far from the only politician to comment on the decline of the American dream, his personal backstory, his experience as a businessman and his reputation as a bipartisan lawmaker made his explanation of what happened all the more compelling. "To me, the answer is actually pretty straightforward," he said. "We didn't do anything."

Delaney cited technology and globalization as forces that transformed the world while Congress failed to prepare the next generation of Americans. "Why?" he asked. "Because we've been too busy fighting."

The explanation allowed Delaney to segue into his implicit criticism of some Democratic candidates as not all that different from President Donald Trump or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in their zero-sum approach. "The American people don't need more partisanship, rigid ideology or gridlock," Delaney said. "What they need are real solutions, not impossible promises, not pie-in-the-sky ideas, not slogans posing as policy."

He called the elimination of private health insurance, supported by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren among others, "a terrible idea" and repeated his one-liner from the debate: "I'm for fixing what's broken and keeping what's working."

Before answering questions from the audience for almost one hour, Delaney cast an image as a pragmatic, common-sense problem-solver. He noted that the title of his book, The Right Answer, comes from a speech by John F. Kennedy in 1958, when the then-Massachusetts Senator implored, "We should not seek the Republican answer. We should not seek the Democratic answer. We should seek the right answer."

The speech, delivered after the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite into space — a crisis for the United States that Delaney compared to the present day — urged Americans not to fix blame or point fingers, but work together. In the same vein, Delaney promised to quickly move past the battles of the Trump era if elected and push five bills, each "based on an existing bipartisan bill," in his first one hundred days.

Delaney said his legislative strategy would avoid the partisanship, and therefore the divisiveness, of past presidents. "To me the job is to be the unifier-in-chief," he said.

John Delaney answered questions on climate change, the opioid epidemic and Israeli settlements from members of the audience for almost one hour after delivering his stump speech in the first 15 minutes.

In the question-and-answer session that followed his speech, Delaney fielded several queries about the feasibility of his bipartisan agenda with the famously obstructionist McConnell as the Senate Republican leader. The former Maryland congressman name-checked another 1960s Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, as his inspiration and vowed "a ruthless strategy." He referenced both "a coalition strategy" and a "one at a time" approach, such as targeting coastal state Republicans like Florida Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott for climate change legislation.

Despite his willingness to reach across the aisle on Capitol Hill, Delaney said he had not seriously considered a unity ticket. "I understand politics," he smiled. "I do live in the real world." He pledged a vice president that shares his values and disclosed that he has "absolutely" considered a unity cabinet.

On climate change, Delaney trumpeted direct air capture, a relatively new and untested industry, for the mitigation of climate change. "Think of it like vacuums that suck CO2 out of the atmosphere," Delaney said — part of a response that Valerie Mayetta, an independent from Keene, liked, "however grand."

Gideon Pollach, an Episcopal priest from Dublin, New Hampshire, asked about the opioid epidemic, which he said was not getting enough attention. Delaney described the crisis as "a Vietnam a year," but noted from his conversations with addiction experts, health care professionals and community leaders in New Hampshire that "there's a lot of best practices that are actually working." Pollach praised Delaney's answer after the event as "pretty well-informed."

The nearly two years of experience on the campaign trail in New Hampshire — Delaney announced his bid for president in July 2017 and has made more visits to the state than any other candidate by a landslide — have paid off for Delaney, as the former Maryland congressman said that he would be a better president for his time talking to voters and meeting with experts.

Delaney defended his decision to announce a campaign earlier than any major party candidate in recent memory as "the right decision for me" and emphasized the importance of the job. He blamed money in politics and gerrymandering, rather than long campaigns, for grinding American democracy to a halt.

"We've always had longer campaigns than everyone," he said. "Because we don't regulate them. We can't because of free speech. And that's what's different about our country. Everything that's amazing about our country always comes with a little thing you don't like about it. That's just the way it works."

This work is made possible by the Russell H. Bostert Memorial Fellowship at Williams College.