Living a Political Life: One of America's First Woman Governors Tells Her Story
(The first time Madeleine M. Kunin ran for office it was b...)
The first time Madeleine M. Kunin ran for office it was because she thought there ought to be more women in politics. In time she fulfilled that belief by becoming the first woman governor of Vermont. Throughout her career, Kunin found that the rules for women politicians were different: she would not be forgiven (nor would she forgive herself) for neglecting her family. She could not afford to display emotion at the wrong times lest she be thought "weak." And she would have to learn to play political hardball with the best of them while keeping her integrity.
In Living a Political Life, Kunin-who is now Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education-takes a frank look at the challenges that confronted her as she tried not just to succeed in politics but to set a precedent for other women. In doing so, she illuminates both what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a public servant and gives us a memoir as thoughtful and revealing as any to emerge from the corridors of power.
Madeleine May Kunin was the first woman governor of Vermont.
Background
Madeleine (May) Kunin was born September 28, 1933, in Zurich, Switzerland, the second child of Ferdinand May, a German-Jewish shoe importer, and Renee Bloch May. Pressed for money following the death of her husband in 1936 and fearing the growing Nazi threat to European Jews, Renee May left Switzerland in 1940 with her two children to join relatives living in the Forest Hills neighborhood of New York City. To support her family, May held jobs as a seamstress, a French tutor, and a baby-sitter. The Mays eventually moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, United States.
Education
Working as a waitress to pay her expenses, Madeleine attended the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, graduating in 1956 with honors in history. She then took the M. S. degree in journalism at Columbia University.
Career
Madeleine secured a job as a general reporter with the Burlington (Vermont) Free Press, the only paper to offer her a post that was not stereotyped as something a woman should do.
She worked for a year as a writer and assistant producer with a Burlington television station. She was active in community affairs, most conspicuously with the League of Women Voters, and also pursued a Master's degree in English while doing occasional free-lance writing. With her family Kunin spent 1970 in Switzerland while her husband was on sabbatical there. She was so moved by the women activists she met who were then struggling to get the franchise for Swiss women that she returned to Vermont with a rekindled desire "to make a difference. "
Kunin entered politics when she campaigned to become Burlington's first woman alderman in 1972. She followed her narrow defeat for alderman by winning a seat in the Vermont House of Representatives later that year, which she occupied for three terms.
She then served two terms as lieutenant governor before securing the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1982. The state's most visible Democratic officeholder, she lost a close contest to a popular Republican incumbent but two years later emerged victorious in a campaign in which she stressed fiscal issues, education, and the environment. Although her pollster showed that her popularity among women voters had been significant in her victory, Kunin aptly remarked of her achievement in becoming just the fourth woman in American history to be elected governor whose husband had not already held that office. Kunin's bid for reelection in 1986 seemed sure until the entry into the gubernatorial race of a third significant candidate threw the election to the legislature where she won handily. During her second term she attracted more attention nationally; speculation arose that she might enter the Cabinet should a Democrat win the presidency in 1988. Although she did not reject the possibility that she might some day run for the U. S. Senate, she announced her candidacy for a third term as governor in 1987. Disturbed by the intellectual dishonesty of many politicians, she announced in early 1990, while serving her third term as governor, that she would not seek re-election.
She was a member of the administration of President Bill Clinton, serving as deputy secretary of education of the United States from 1993 until 1997, when she became the ambassador to her native Switzerland, as well as to Liechtenstein.
Achievements
Kunin was the first Jew and the first woman to be elected governor of Vermont. Aided by Vermont's economic growth, she erased a large budget deficit she had inherited from her predecessor. She also fought for and got more money for education, the creation of a state venture capital corporation, and tough new environmental laws and enforcement even when that meant confronting the state's powerful ski industry.
In 1995, Kunin received the Foreign Language Advocacy Award from the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in recognition of her support for education, equal access for all children and equitable salaries for teachers
A liberal Democrat in a state whose traditional commitment to the Republican Party was being eroded, she ran on a platform that stressed educational, environmental, and poverty issues. During six years in the House of Representatives Kunin impressed colleagues and fellow Vermonters with her attention to the budget process and served as chairperson of the house appropriations committee in her third and final term.
As a governor of Vermont, from the start Kunin displayed a hard-to-define style that, while effective, was different from that of her male predecessors. She made it clear that what she wanted for Vermont was planned growth, the balancing of economic development with concern for the environment.
Kunin also worked in Clinton's campaign as a member of the search committee for the Vice Presidential nominee and on the transition team.
Views
Quotations:
"I loved having children. I suspect that's why I had four of them. "
"You have to build your own credentials as a candidate, not just as a woman. "
"I don't yell, but I know how to fight for what I want. "
"We've been educated to be mothers, peacemakers, but we must learn that we can't please everybody. "
"We are living in a time when we set the stage nationally for political disillusionment when politicians make promises that are impossible to keep. Worst among these is the promise of no new taxes, while guaranteeing continued, or even vastly enhanced, results. "
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"The testosterone level (at her inauguration) fell dramatically. "
Connections
In 1959 she married Dr. Arthur Kunin, a kidney specialist at the University of Vermont School of Medicine. She had her first child, a daughter, in 1961. She subsequently had three sons and put aside her career to raise her family.
