A (former) Republican vote for Biden: Pete McCloskey at 93 serves his country again
Electoral College votes were cast across America on Monday, including one for Joe Biden by a 93-year-old Yolo County resident who was a war hero, a U.S. Congressman, and an author of the Endangered Species Act. He has spent his life placing country above political affiliations when doing so was unpopular and even dangerous.
After a series of heart attacks, Pete McCloskey – a resident of Winters – needed a walker to get into the state Capitol to cast his vote for Biden. But the threat of protesters blocking his path to the building did not frighten him. He earned the Navy Cross, a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts for multiple wounds suffered during the Korean War.
McCloskey was a Marine then, a commander of a rifle platoon whose mission was to assault a fortified enemy hill that was badly needed for strategic purposes. “Second Lieutenant McCloskey skillfully led his platoon through a vicious hail of automatic-weapons, small-arms and grenade fire into the heart of the hostile position,” reads his Navy Cross citation.
“Although painfully wounded in the initial charge, he resolutely continued to spearhead the assault, coolly directing and encouraging his men and personally moving into the enemy-held bunkers to seek out and destroy their occupants. By his daring initiative, aggressive determination and inspiring leadership, he was responsible for the success of the attack which left forty of the enemy dead and twenty-two captured, and for the seizing of a strategic position from a numerically superior hostile force. “
McCloskey’s harrowing combat experience in Korea and how he became an elector have a parallel. He serves his country no matter the threat or danger.
Bay Area Congresswoman Jackie Speier selected McCloskey to be an elector, in part, because they share a bond, a long-time friendship and a reluctance to say much about the wounds they incurred while defending America.
In 1978, Speier was a 28-year-old congressional staffer who was wounded in an ambush carried out by the zealous followers of the Rev. Jim Jones. Speier’s boss, U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan, had flown to the nation of Guyana to investigate allegations of abuse at Jones’ now infamous People’s Temple.
Ryan was going to take some of Jones’ followers back to the United States. They were attacked by Jones’ thugs. Ryan was killed as were others, but Speier survived. That same day – Nov. 17, 1978 – more than 900 Jones followers and Jones died in a mass suicide.
Moved by Speier’s bravery and angry that she was never properly recognized for her experience, McCloskey gave Speier one of his Purple Hearts. “An inscription notes ‘the perils of civil life often require more courage’ than those of the battlefield,” wrote the Los Angeles Times in 2012.
Defies risk of coronavirus to serve
McCloskey lived those words on Monday. His age and frail health place him in the most vulnerable group to the coronavirus. He wore a white N95 surgical mask and a smart tan jacket. He clutched a white piece of paper with black lettering that read: “CD 14.” Speier represents California’s 14th congressional district.
He wasn’t scared for himself, but was frightened for his country.
“I’ll be on pins and needles until Pennsylvania and Georgia electors vote,” he said by telephone two days before the vote.
His wife Helen drove from their home in Winters him to downtown Sacramento to cast his vote Monday.
Reports across country on Monday said Republican followers of Trump attempted to block Electoral College electors from certifying Biden’s presidential win. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told National Public Radio of security threats at her state capitol as electors gathered to vote.
Wisconsin cast its electoral votes for Biden but only after the Wisconsin Supreme Court rebuffed a challenge by President Donald Trump to throw out more than 200,000 Biden votes. Even then the vote by the court was 4-3.
By the time McCloskey cast his vote in the 3 p.m. hour in Sacramento, Biden’s clear victory was certified . American democracy for which McCloskey risked his life had prevailed against Trump followers, who behaved like anti-democratic goons in some third-world nation.
What had become of the Republican Party that McCloskey and three generations of his family before him had supported?
“My great-great grandfather came to California after the potato famine and we had been pretty good Republicans since then,” McCloskey said. “My family were Republicans in California since Abraham Lincoln was president.”
Old-school Republican
McCloskey was elected to Congress in 1967 as a Republican from Palo Alto and, no, that’s not a misprint. McCloskey hailed then from the now liberal hub of Silicon Valley innovation. In that first race, he beat none other than Shirley Temple-Black, who was America’s sweetheart as a child star in the 1930s an 1940s.
McCloskey was the kind of Republican that California and America used to produce: Principled, patriotic, bipartisan.
He headed to Congress to get things done for his district and for America. He had that chiseled chin and closed cropped hair of a former Marine then. After being a Korean War hero, he went to law school at Stanford, built a thriving practice that was prosperous and influential enough to have people encouraging him to run against Temple-Black. He never planned to go into politics.
“I thought being a Marine in the time of war was a good thing and being in attorney in a time of peace was a good thing,” he said. “
Instead of being a war hawk in Congress, he opposed the Vietnam War – which was a courageous stand for a Republican to take while Richard Nixon was president. But this was not the type of Republican you see now, the one admitting in private that Trump lost the election while supporting Trump in public.
McCloskey challenged Nixon in the 1972 Republican primary. He told the New York Times in 1972 that if he had to enter the primaries to end the Vietnam War, he would “go into the primaries.” Vice President Spiro Agnew compared McCloskey to Benedict Arnold.
‘I’ve probably become a pacifist’
In a real sense, McCloskey was fighting un-democratic partisanship a half century before casting his vote as an elector.
He was the first member of Congress to call for Nixon’s impeachment.
In the short term, Nixon won his party’s nomination in a rout over McCloskey. In the long term, Nixon was forced to resign, went down in infamy as a corrupt president until Trump came along. History proved the folly of Vietnam.
“I’ve probably become a pacifist,” he said.
Imagine if more Republican politicians today had McCloskey’s courage?
After Nixon resigned, McCloskey became a hero of the environment. He was a major force behind the creation of Earth Day. He was a co-author of the Endangered Species Act.
He left the Republican party for good and became a Democrat during the Iraq war, after the administration of George W Bush sanctioned torture of Iraqi soldiers. And truthfully, there is much more to his legacy than what has been written here.
McCloskey retired to Yolo County 30 years ago and moved to Winters this year.
When asked what has become of the Republican Party he once supported, McCloskey struggled for an answer.
“It’s a mystery to me,” he said. “They must be afraid of Trump.”
“But I was honored to cast my ballot. We need a government that tells the truth,” he said.
The truth is, we need more Americans like McCloskey who place country over party and who care more about the will of the people than the whims of anti-American politicians.
This story was originally published December 15, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
