How the World of Politics Really Works & How to Run a Successful Campaign (1994)

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Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. (December 9, 1912 -- January 5, 1994) was an American politician and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. O'Neill was an outspoken liberal Democrat and influential member of the House of Representatives, serving for 34 years and representing two congressional districts in Massachusetts. He served as Speaker of the House from 1977 until his retirement in 1987, making him the only Speaker to serve for five complete consecutive Congresses, and the second longest-serving Speaker in U.S. history after Sam Rayburn. O'Neill first became active in politics at 15, campaigning for Al Smith in his 1928 presidential campaign. Four years later, he helped campaign for Franklin D. Roosevelt. As a senior at Boston College, O'Neill ran for a seat on the Cambridge City Council, but lost; his first race and only electoral defeat. The campaign taught him the lesson that became his best-known quote: "All politics is local".[3] After graduating in 1936, O'Neill was elected at the age of 24 to the Massachusetts House of Representatives; aided by tough economic times among his constituents; an experience that made him a strong advocate of the New Deal policies of Roosevelt, which were just then coming to an end. His biographer John Aloysius Farrell said his background in Depression-era working-class Boston, and his interpretation of his Catholic faith led O'Neill to view the role of government as intervening to cure social ailments. O'Neill was "an absolute, unrepentant, unreconstructed New Deal Democrat," Farrell wrote.[4] In 1949, he became the first Democratic Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in its history. He remained in that post until 1952, when he ran for the United States House of Representatives from his home district. O'Neill was elected to the congressional seat vacated by Senator-elect John F. Kennedy in 1952. During his second term in the House, O'Neill was selected to the House Rules Committee where he proved a crucial asset for the Democratic leadership, particularly his mentor, fellow Boston congressman and later Speaker, John William McCormack.[5] After wrestling with the issues surrounding the Vietnam War, in 1967 O'Neill broke with President Lyndon B. Johnson and came out in opposition to America's involvement.[6] O'Neill wrote in his autobiography that he also became convinced that the conflict in Vietnam was a civil war and that US involvement was morally wrong. While the decision cost O'Neill some support among older voters in his home district, he benefited from new support among students and faculty members at the many colleges and universities there. In the House of Representatives itself, O'Neill also picked up the trust and support of younger House members who shared his anti-war views, and they became important friends who contributed to O'Neill's rise through the ranks in the House.[7] In 1971, O'Neill was appointed Majority Whip in the House, the number three position for the Democratic Party in the House. In 1973, he was elected House Majority Leader, following the presumed death of Congressman Hale Boggs in a plane crash in Alaska. As Majority Leader, O'Neill was the most prominent Democrat in the House to call for the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon in light of the Watergate scandal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_O%27Neill