A Tale of Two Cities (speech)

A Tale of Two Cities is a speech given by New York Governor Mario Cuomo on July 16, 1984, at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, California.

[1] Throughout his first year as Governor, Cuomo supported numerous liberal policies even as conservatism was growing in popularity, garnering him national attention.

[3] In March 1984 Gary Hart, a senator seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidential election, openly citing inspiration from Cuomo, stated, "I'd like to talk about the family of America.

Cuomo stated that he had promised to finish his four-year term as governor, but indicated that he would not be opposed to delivering the keynote address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in San Francisco, California.

Cuomo did not believe he had a high enough national profile for such an event[7] and felt that Senator Edward M. Kennedy would make for a better speaker.

Michael Del Giudice, the governor's chief of staff, urged Cuomo to accept the offer, believing it was a good opportunity for him to express his beliefs and a chance to bolster Mondale's support.

[9] Cuomo's son, Andrew, and his communications director, Tim Russert, shared the governor's anxieties that a bad performance would reflect poorly on him and damage his own political prospects.

[10] Kennedy was upset that Mondale did not want him to be the keynote speaker and stated that the person chosen for the role should be among the Democrats who had remained neutral during the presidential primaries.

[13] Andrew Cuomo and Russert reviewed footage of past convention keynote addresses to devise a strategy for maximizing the speech's resonance with the audience.

[14] Cuomo read numerous versions aloud in the dining room of the New York State Executive Mansion to his advisers and went through up to 60 different drafts before he was "comfortable" with the work.

Quinn settled on incorporating a story of Cuomo's father, an Italian immigrant, working long shifts at his grocery store until his feet bled.

He sat in the empty convention hall and made several late edits to the transcript—the copy supplied for the teleprompter was marked with numerous hand-written revisions.

[17] Andrew Cuomo and Russert, having observed the ambivalence of the crowds in past convention footage and fearing it would impact television viewers' reception, believed the video would make the audience more attentive to the governor's speech.

[10] Following the introduction, the lights in the convention center darkened and a single spotlight tracked Cuomo as he walked over to the podium.

[18] The Secret Service agents providing security thought dimming the lights would leave the convention more vulnerable to a gunman and objected.

Let me instead use this valuable opportunity to deal immediately with the questions that should determine this election and that we all know are vital to the American people.Cuomo proceeded to bring his audience's attention to a recent statement by Reagan at a campaign event and aimed to highlight a contradiction he saw in the president's use of the phrase "shining city on a hill":[20][a] Ten days ago, President Reagan admitted that although some people in this country seemed to be doing well nowadays, others were unhappy, even worried, about themselves, their families, and their futures.

But the hard truth is that not everyone is sharing in this city's splendor and glory.Cuomo then attacked Reagan's rhetoric by using imagery to craft an actuality in stark contrast to his vision.

There are ghettos where thousands of young people, without a job or an education, give their lives away to drug dealers every day.He subsequently addressed Reagan directly, sardonically calling him "Mr. President",[22] and encapsulating his own message of vast inequality in America in a metaphorical allusion to Charles Dickens's novel, A Tale of Two Cities:[23] There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don't see, in the places that you don't visit in your shining city.

"Government can't do everything," we were told, so it should settle for taking care of the strong and hope that economic ambition and charity will do the rest.

"Enunciating his claim that Democrats supported family values, Cuomo invoked Franklin D. Roosevelt—widely admired by Democrats—highlighting his efforts as president and suggesting that his physical disability would make him a victim of Republican policy.

Today our great Democratic Party, which has saved this nation from depression, from fascism, from racism, from corruption, is called upon to do it again—this time to save the nation from confusion and division, from the threat of eventual fiscal disaster, and most of all from the fear of a nuclear holocaust.Conceding Reagan's strengths as a communicator, the governor provided a plan for Democrats to garner electoral support and returned to the "Tale of Two Cities" theme:[27] That's not going to be easy.

We need—We need a platform we can all agree to so that we can sing out the truth for the nation to hear, in chorus, its logic so clear and commanding that no slick Madison Avenue commercial, no amount of geniality, no martial music will be able to muffle the sound of the truth.The address was interrupted 52 times by applause.

"[10] Though many journalists attempted to interview him, Cuomo departed in the evening and flew back to the Executive Mansion in Albany, New York.

"[35] In a July 21 analysis of the DNC, Dudley Clendinen of The New York Times wrote "Governor Cuomo's speech showed it was possible for a Democrat to combat President Reagan on television with philosophy and metaphor, that passion could be the party's engine and oratory its modern weapon.

"[36] Murray Kempton of Newsday remarked that "For a little less time than it takes a subway from Far Rockaway to Manhattan, Mario Cuomo had taken all the broken promises and put them together shining and renewed, and he had restored the Democratic Party to virginity.

William Safire remarked that it was "the best-delivered keynote address since the days of Alben Barkley—devoid only of humor...[Cuomo] almost succeeded in giving compassion a good name."

"[32] Nevertheless, Reagan deemed Cuomo's rhetorical appeals to working-class voters to be of threatening strength and re-orientated his campaign to ensure their support.

Richard Greene opined that due to this fact and that many of the issues Cuomo highlighted were not subsequently addressed, the speech failed in its immediate goal.

"[39] Andrei Cherny wrote, "A hundred years from now, if there is one speech that people will study and remember from a Democratic politician in the last quarter of the 20th century, it will rightly be Cuomo's 1984 address.

Likening it to William Jennings Bryan's 1896 Cross of Gold speech which, though well received, was not conscious of impending modernization and did not lead to political success, he concluded that "The lengthened shadow of Cuomo's address has contributed to inhibiting the growth of a new, unifying, positive appeal that puts progress back at the heart of progressivism.