WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
An Oral History Interview with
MATTHEW FLYNN
Interviewer: .Anita Hecht, Life History Services Recording Date: January 5, 2009 Place: Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Length: 1.25 hours
Matthew Joseph Flynn was raised in Harlem, New York, by Gerard and Geraldine Monahan Flynn. In 1965, he graduated from Portsmouth Priory in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and then attended Yale University, earning a degree in Spanish. .After college, Flynn attended the Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, and in 1970, he was commissioned as an officer. He received an honorable discharge in 1972 to attend Law School at the University of Wisconsin.
.After graduation, Flynn joined Quarles & Brady, a Milwaukee law firm, where he remains a partner. In 1978, when there was a vacancy in a Congressional District 9, Flynn decided to run for Congress and Senators William Proxmire and Gaylord Nelson campaigned on his behalf. District 9 was the most conservative district in the state, and he was defeated.
Over the years Flynn and Sen. Proxmire campaigned for one another. In 1981, Flynn ran for Chair of the Democratic Party and won; in 1986, he ran for Senate, and in 1988 and 2004, for Congress. Flynn recalled Sen. Proxmire's uniquely personal campaign style and his well-known frugality. PROJECT NAME: PROXMIRE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Verbatim Interview Transcript NARRATOR: MATTHEW FLYNN INTERVIEWER: Anita Hecht INTERVIEW DATE: January 5,2009 INTERVIEW LOCATION: Milwaukee, Wisconsin INTERVIEW LENGTH: Approximately 1.25 Hours KEY: MF Matt Flynn BP Bill Proxmire
SUBJECT INDEX
HOUR1
Hour 1/00:00 MF Family History Educational Background/Introduction to Politics
Hour 1/10:12 Reasons for Pursuing Law Work as Law Clerk Introduction to BP Work in Democratic Party
Hour 1/20:25 First Meeting with BP BP's Campaigning Style BP's Voter Appeal MF's Work as Party Chair
Hour 1/30:10 Role of Democratic Chair Democratic Party's View of BP PB's Political Independence
Hour 1/39:55 Campaigning with BP BP's Beliefs on Social Issues Golden Fleece Awards BP's Speculated Reaction to Social Issues Today
Hour 1/50:00 BP's Later Years/Alzheimer's MF's Continuing Contact with BP's Family BP's Legacy
HOUR 2
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript Proxmire Oral History Project Hour 2/00:00 BP Anecdotes BP Legacy
Hour 2/10:00 The Genocide Treaty Importance of BP's Service to Wisconsin Fragmentation of Democratic Party Future of Political Parties BP's Influence on Current Wisconsin Politicians
HOUR1
Hour 1/00:00 MF Family History, Educational Background/Introduction to Politics
The date is January 5 in the year 2009. My name is Anita Hecht, and I have the great pleasure
of interviewing Matthew Joseph Flynn in his office at Quarles and Brady in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, on behalf of the William Proxmire Oral History Project for the Wisconsin Historical
Society. So, thank you, Matt, for agreeing to participate.
Thank you.
I'd like to begin this interview with a bit of information about you and your background. First of
all, when and where were you born?
I was born in New York City, October 3 , 1947. The hospital actually was in Harlem, but my
parents lived in the Bronx at the time and I grew up in the Bronx as a very young child.
Tell me a little bit about your family history.
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript Proxmire Oral History Project My father was a professor of Spanish at UWM - University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee - from
1963 until he passed away in 1997. And he was an expert in, I would say, Golden Age Literature.
He did his dissertation on Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz. Dad had a PhD [Doctor of Philosophy]
from NYU [New York University], a Masters from Columbia University, got his BA [Bachelor
of Arts Degree] from Fordham University. My mom didn't graduate from college. She worked at
home raising the family and then as the children got older, worked in the post office. And she
was the Postmaster and the Assistant Postmaster in some small towns just north of Milwaukee.
They were both born in New York City; my mom in 1925, my dad in 1924. And their
grandparents were, as well - my mom's grandparents were. My dad's came from Ireland in the
1880s, and my mom's came from Ireland sometime before then, perhaps as long ago as the '40s
or '50s.
Roman Catholic?
Yes.
And how many kids in your family?
Eleven children in our family.
What number were you?
Number one.
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript A Proxmire Oral History Project Number one? Is that a big cross to bear, the oldest son?
Well, you know, there are a lot of articles on sibling position. So regardless of how many are in the family - and I don't know how useful any of that is, but, you know, when you're the oldest,
you do have certain responsibilities.
So tell me about your youth a little bit, what the influences were on you, and [your] schooling.
Yeah, it was a great youth. In a nut[shell], so many things came together. First of all, my parents
are wonderful. It was a wonderful upbringing. It was also right after the Second World War, and
America was entering its zenith of probably prosperity for the middle class and prestige
internationally. It's always a great time to be an American, but it certainly was in the '50s and
'60s. And I went to all Catholic schools except for kindergarten and sixth grade. My parents
didn't believe in television, so we didn't own a television set until I was seventeen. So I just read
all the time. I read all the Horatio Alger stories, GA Henty, Tom Swift, the Hardy Boys, Poppy
Ott and Jerry Todd, the Boyle Eyes, all of those. I would just read, you know, probably fifty or
sixty books a year, and all those kinds of novels. And it was a great idyllic upbringing.
So you went to Catholic boarding school when you were in high school?
Yeah. And I got out of the eighth grade in '81 and I got a scholarship to Portsmouth Priory in
Rhode Island, which is run by the Benedictine Monks. It's a very good high school. Bobby
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 5 Proxmire Oral History Project Kennedy went there, and Teddy Kennedy was put there during the Second World War just to
sort of give him somewhere to be, you know, because his father was over in Europe. And there
are a number of- EJ Dionne, the columnist, there are a number of writers that have gone there,
novelists; John Gregory Dunne. And it has a real literary tradition and it was a great, great
education; went to class six days a week. It was great.
When did you graduate?
1965.
Tell me about political influences up to that point in your life.
I would say my parents were pretty much independent. My mother's side of the family were
probably more Republicans. My grandfather on my mom's side was a stockbroker, and for
awhile he had his own financial services firm on Wall Street. And my dad's father worked in the
Clerk of Court's Office in the Bronx, and both grandmothers worked at home. So, although my
dad's mother, when my dad's father died, went out and became a medical librarian; but
conservative on my mother's side, and my father's side less so. And I think that basically
independent; politics wasn't really stressed.
It wasn't?
No, not at all. No, absolutely not.
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 6 Proxmire Oral History Project Do you remember when you first became interested in politics?
When I went to college. In 1965,1 started college at Yale University and I think that the
influence of certainly John Kennedy, his assassination and then Bobby Kennedy, at the time,
made a powerful impression on me, and Martin Luther King. And also the times; the late '60s
were times of political turmoil. And so in 1968,1 did some very, very rudimentary volunteer
work in Bobby Kennedy's campaign, more in the Connecticut area where he didn't really need
it. I didn't travel. I also did volunteer work in Abe Ribicoffs Senate campaign in Connecticut,
and in Allard Lowenstein's congressional campaign down in Long Island in Nassau County in
'68. And I got very interested in politics. So I joined a thing at Yale called The Connecticut
Intercollegiate Student Legislature. Each of the colleges in Connecticut fielded a delegation of a
mock State Legislature, and I was elected the State Chairman in 1968. And so I, yeah, I presided
over a mock legislature and I enjoyed it. So in the back of my mind when I graduated - that
summer I was the campaign manager for a guy named Paul Capra - C-A-P-R-A, who was
running for mayor of New Haven. And that got me very interested. So I figured when I got out of the Navy, I might go into politics.
So you graduated from Yale in 1969?
Right.
With a degree in ...
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 7 Proxmire Oral History Project Spanish.
In Spanish. And before we move on from there, you said you also played sports.
Yes.
Was that a big part of your life?
Yeah, very much. I love sports. I played - for instance, going back as a kid - little league, pony
league, Babe Ruth league. I was on the All Star team for my little league in Franklin Township,
New Jersey. We got beaten on the way to the States, but I enjoyed baseball. I played baseball,
cross country, and fencing. I was on the fencing team at Portsmouth and then at Yale, I had my
freshman numerals for fencing and I played intramural tackle football and baseball. I will always
enjoy sports.
You had that in common with Proxmire.
Yeah, although Proxmire's an unusual guy. He was also on the boxing team, and he's one of
only three people I've ever met in politics that boxed, and every one of them had a characteristic that I really admired, and that is no matter how bad things ever got, or how adverse they ever got, they really were quite fearless. And I've come to the conclusion -1 only boxed once with gloves
- and I've come to the conclusion that if you do that for a period of time and occasionally get hit
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 8 Proxmire Oral History Project in the face, basically, that you are much less likely to be startled or to be defensive or anything
else, even in politics.
That's interesting. So fearless is one word you 'd use to describe him and other politician boxers
that you knew?
Absolutely. Well, the other one was Henry Maier, who was the Mayor of Milwaukee, and the third was an old African American gentleman who - I don't think he ever got beyond the eighth
grade - Ollie Thompson. But he's a wonderful guy, very active in politics, and he boxed, too, as
an amateur. And those three people had that same characteristic.
You graduated Yale in '69?
Right.
And then you enlisted in the Navy?
Yes. I went to Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, and got commissioned
as an officer in May of 1970. And then I served on active duty beyond that, till I got an
honorable discharge in '72 to go to law school.
Vietnam was going on at the time.
Right.
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 9 Proxmire Oral History Project Did you have feelings about that and our involvement?
Well, not the way some people did. I think I viewed it in more as a kind of mistake, a tactical and
strategic mistake. My first orders oddly were to a ship that was home ported in Quam. It was a
diving ship that would have spent most of its time clearing the rivers. And my orders were
changed about -1 don't know - within several weeks before I left. And I instead was sent to a
diving ship called an ARS, an Auxiliary Rescue Salvage ship, out of Little Creek, Virginia. And
so I didn't go to Vietnam. I was not a diver myself, but I was interested in that kind of aspect of the Navy. And I was an operations officer navigator on an ARS.
Hour 1/10:12 Reasons for Pursuing Law, Work as Law Clerk, Introduction to BP, Work in Democratic Party
Had you gone to clear rivers, your fate would have probably been much different.
Well, yes. I was very fortunate, because as it turned out, the guys that went to Vietnam and
cleared the rivers - because the Vietcong would push debris into the river to clog them - there
was danger certainly from the Vietcong, but the real danger was from Agent Orange. Because they'd bathe in the river, they'd drink out of the river, they'd swim in the river, and we were
defoliating the rivers, the banks, so that the Vietcong couldn't hide there and shoot at us. But
what people didn't understand at the time was that by doing that, they really endangered people
more than probably the Vietcong endangered them.
Well, fortunate you didn't go, then.
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 10 Proxmire Oral History Project I think so.
So 1972, you were discharged. And then what? You wanted to go to law school?
Yeah. So I enrolled in law school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
And why Wisconsin? Because your father had been in Milwaukee?
Well, there were a lot of reasons. It's a very good law school. Madison's a very good university.
This is going back thirty-six years. Of all the law schools that I applied to and got into, this was the one that I think was as good or the best of any of them. I got in-state tuition.
Which you said was how much?
Believe it or not, my recollection, and I think this is a good recollection, is in the fall of '72, the tuition, now just tuition, was two hundred and fifty-do liars, (laughter)
Plus you had the GI Bill, right?
And I had the GI Bill, which paid a couple hundred dollars a month, as I recall. I think it was
approximately two hundred a month, give or take. And that was sufficient so that I could live
without working in law school. At the end of my second year, I was a teaching assistant in Legal
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 11 Proxmire Oral History Project Writing. That gave me a tuition remittance and some money. And my third year I was the editor-
in-chief of the Law Review, which remitted my tuition. So that was enough to get me through.
What do you think drew you to law school?
I think a lot of things. I was giving it consideration even in '69. I came very close to staying on to get a PhD at Yale. Even though my degree's in Spanish, I had probably an equal number of
courses in the classics, in Latin and Greek. And the Classics Department was actively recruiting
people because in the late '60s, not many people were going on for PhDs in Classics. And it was
very attractive because Yale had a good Classics Department. But was I was restless. I was thinking of politics. Law seemed to be an avenue for that. That's one reason why Wisconsin was
a good place to go because that was where my family was and, I mean, you can't just go to
Mississippi and enroll in law school and go into politics. The other thing was I enjoyed debating.
I enjoyed public speaking. When I was in grade school, I was selected in the eighth grade to give
various speeches and people would say, "Well, maybe you should be a lawyer," and that's when
it first occurred to me. So it was always something in the back of my mind.
Was there a particular part of the law that you focused on or got interested in when you were in
law school?
When I was in law school - most people go into law school thinking they know what they want to do with it, and they're always mistaken in terms of the classes. I thought that - international
law interested me because I'd lived in Mexico as a kid. The truth is that international law is sort
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 12 Proxmire Oral History Project of a misnomer. It's not clear to me there is such a thing as international law. It's all transactional,
mergers and acquisitions, contract, that kind of a thing. The courses that I enjoyed most in law
school were the ones I've never used - Corporate Taxation - it was a great course and I enjoyed
it. So you can't go into law school thinking you know what you're going to use it for, and I
didn't, certainly. When I got out, I deferred the choice even more by opting to clerk for a Judge
for a year.
Tell me about that.
I applied to be a clerk at the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for Tom Fairchild,
who's the Chief Judge. And he'd been a former Attorney General of Wisconsin. He'd been the
Democratic Party's candidate for Senate against Joe McCarthy in '52 and against Alexander
Wiley in '50. He's really a very funny Judge and it had been pretty commonly thought - he was
a good friend of Hubert Humphrey's - if Hubert had won the '68 presidential campaign, Tom
would have been on a very short list for the US Supreme Court. His reputation was that strong.
So he selected me as his law clerk. So I was his law clerk in Chicago from a little over a year,
'75/76.
Did that experience shape your politics?
It didn't shape it in the sense I was already a Democrat, already committed, I think, if I ever ran, to running as a Democrat. But certainly meeting him and listening to his stories about the
Democratic Party in the '40s and '50s was very, very interesting. I'd also met Pat Lucey.
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 13 Proxmire Oral History Project Actually, that was a few years later; but meeting that whole generation of people that founded the modern Democratic Party in Wisconsin, along with Proxmire and Nelson, really did have a
very strong impression on me.
I'm curious to hear what you first heard of Proxmire, what you knew about him before you met
him.
I voted for him absentee when I was in the Navy in 1970. He was running for re-election and I
got an absentee ballot. And I forget who his opponent was. But that would have been in the fall
of '70, when we were about to deploy to the Mediterranean. And so I voted for him. I'd always
heard his name. He was always shaking hands and people knew him. And I always had a very
positive impression of him right from the start. I didn't meet him until 1978, when I ran for
Congress and he helped me in my campaign.
Okay. So during those eight years, did you follow his Senate career at all?
Well, in candor, I was probably so busy with the Navy and law school and clerking and then
working for a law firm, that I can't say that I gave much thought to anybody who was in office.
But I always remember that he was somebody who I always looked on as kind of the gold
standard among politicians for integrity and national stature, yes.
Were you aware ofhis watchdog role on government spending already in the '70s?
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 14 Proxmire Oral History Project Yes. I forget when he founded the Golden Fleece Award, but I do recall that he did that. And I think that was very popular. And I know when he ran for election in '76, he got a higher
percentage. I think he got maybe a little over seventy percent of the vote. I mean, it was a huge
margin in '76. And I think he was universally admired in Wisconsin.
Now, you had a couple of things in common that probably came out later. You had both gone to
Yale.
Right.
You 'd both been in the Army. Did you have any conversations about either of those experiences?
Not as much. Although another guy who'd gone to Yale was Les Aspin, who had also, I think -
had somehow worked for Proxmire either in his office or as an intern or something. And I
remember there was an article that The Milwaukee Sentinel published in the ' 80s about three
people. Obviously, I was kind of the odd man out in terms of stature in this crowd, but it would
Proxmire, Aspin and - or maybe it was when I was the Party [Democratic] Chairman. So I can't
say that we did talk about Yale very much. He graduated from Yale in the late '30s. It was an
entirely different kind of a place then. Nor did I talk to him about his time in the Army. I think I talked to him more about his experiences in the Democratic Party back in the '50s.
Well, let's talk about that, then. When did you first get officially involved with the Democratic
Party in Wisconsin?
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 15 Proxmire Oral History Project Well, you know, it's strange. I got out of my clerkship in '76 and started to work at Quarles and
Brady. And it became pretty clear by '77 that Bob Kasten was going to leave his Ninth
Congressional District Seat and run for Governor, so there'd be an open seat. And I talked with a
number of my friends and I decided I'd run for it. So I just pulled out the phonebook, looked up
Democratic Party, and showed up at a meeting. And the Democratic Party in the Ninth
Congressional District was so - it wasn't disorganized - but it was so slender in its ranks, I
mean, because it's the most conservative District in the State - that when I walked in - this was the North Shore Democratic Party meeting up in - it was in a bank basement building up on the
corner of Brown Deer Road and Port Road -they said, "How would you like to be the Vice
Chairman of the unit?" In my own view, that was a fairly sad reflection on that unit. I mean, they
were hard up for basically anybody under sixty years old. And then I went to the county
meetings. I remember thinking, you know, these are very nice people, and I could easily, in my
view, get involved in this. So that was probably November/December of '77.
So it was the most conservative district in the State?
Without question. If you took a look at the figures, the Ninth Congressional District, which was
Ozaukee County, Washington, Waukesha, Jefferson, part of Dodge - absolutely. If you looked at
head of the ticket figures, if you looked at, by any measure, Jim Sensenbrenner's Senate -the
one he won - he beat me '78 - Congressional Seat, the old Ninth District, was the most
conservative of the nine districts in the State.
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 16 Proxmire Oral History Project Hour 1/20:25 First Meeting with BP, BP's Campaigning Style, BP's Voter Appeal, MF's Work as Party Chair
So you knew that going in that it was kind of an underdog?
Yes. But I thought I could get the nomination, which would have been an accomplishment, and I did. And, you know, especially when you're younger, you always think that, "Well, people will notice and you'll win." So, you know, it didn't turn out to be, although we got more votes than people had usually gotten in that District.
So this was when you first had face-to-face contact with Proxmire?
Yes.
Tell me about the first meeting.
When I was the nominee - not in the primary - but when I was the nominee in September of '78, both he and Gaylord Nelson campaigned for me because the State Party asked them to. So he would accompany me, and I'll never forget, the first time I campaigned with him. It was very funny, because he was a household name in Wisconsin. I was unknown. But I had been actively campaigning for the previous few months. And so we were in a Kohls Store on Oakland Avenue in Milwaukee just north of Capitol Drive a few blocks. And we were standing outside shaking hands, and he would say, "I'm Bill Proxmire," and "Vote for Matt Flynn. He's a good man. He'd be good in Congress." A woman came up. She must have just recently moved to the State. She
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 17 Proxmire Oral History Project looked at me and she said, "Well, I've heard of you," and she turned to Proxmire and she said,
"I've never heard of you." He thought that was funny as hell. He really did. (laughter) I did, too.
And then the other thing I remember of that campaign which is very, very nice is the election
night. Obviously I was losing. I got about thirty-nine percent of the vote. And historically, since then, they've gotten a lot less. But Bill Proxmire was the color commentator on Channel 12 or 4
for the Democrats. And I think Ody Fish, the Chairman of the Republican Party, was color
commentator on the other side. And the TV anchor said, "Well, it looks pretty bad for Flynn. Our
figures show that he'd have to win Waukesha County two to one to win this." Of course,
Waukesha County is the most conservative county in the State, so it's not going to happen. And
Odie Fish said, "Well, and that's absurd. When has that ever happened?" and Proxmire said,
"Well, that happened the last time I ran. I did it, and I think Matt can do it." Of course, Matt, you
know, couldn't do and wasn't going to. But he stood up for me and it was really great. I mean, he
was a great guy.
What can you tell me about his campaigning style?
His campaigning style was so different from anything now. He would simply get in the car by
himself with no driver, no security, and nobody at all, just drive around. And he'd go out to the
flower show at the State Fair. He'd go to, you know, the Bucks, the Brewers; whenever he was in town, he'd go wherever there was a crowd and just stand there. And he kept a clicker in his left
pocket and at the end of the day, he'd write down how many hands he'd shake. And he estimated
he'd shaken several million hands in his career. But I've never met anybody who lived in
Wisconsin during that time that hadn't shaken his hand, any adult. And I'd met many who'd
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 18 Proxmire Oral History Project shaken it several times, and they remember where they shook it, too. And he truly didn't spend
any money. I think he spent money to mail contributions back, that kind of thing. He just got
down, burrowed down into everyone's consciousness on a very, very personal basis. And one, I think, very interesting fact about him that most people don't realize, when I asked him how he
got elected the first time - he ran in a special election in 1957 when Joe McCarthy died and
Walter Kohler, very famous name in Wisconsin, [then] Governor, was his opponent. And Kohler
was so certain he was going to win that he bought a house out in Washington before the election.
And I asked Prox how he won, and he said, "You know," - because everybody thinks of Prox as just shaking hands and spending no money - he said, "he was one of the first," - and Pat Lucey told me this, too, because Pat was his campaign manager - he saw the power of television and he
bought a half an hour on television and he had his family and his wife and his kids. And the television was just coming into its own politically in '57/58 and I don't think Kohler did that. So
ironically, Proxmire won in '57 in a most modern way, but throughout the '70s and '80s when I
knew him, he won in a very old fashioned way.
Because then he didn't use television?
Well, he didn't raise any money to buy it. He got plenty of free TV, so in that respect, he did. But
I think that paid television was more the characteristic back, for him, in '57, believe it or not.
7 wonder what a paid spot cost in '5 7?
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 19 Proxmire Oral History Project Very little. But, you know, you thought it was funny when my tuition was two fifty. You're not
going to believe this: the two fifty comes up again. When I ran for Congress in 1978, a thirty
second spot in Watertown, Wisconsin, on the radio on the weekends was two dollars and fifty
cents, for thirty seconds.
Wow.
Yeah. Yeah, that wasn't production, but, you know. But you still had to raise it, you know?
Do you think that that accounts for his great appeal, this handshaking throughout the State? Or
what do you think appealed to the Wisconsin voter about Proxmire?
Well, I think that was part of it. He was a man of great integrity, and it showed. If you were a
phony and shook all those hands, people wouldn't support you. And if you were a man or
woman of great integrity and didn't shake those hands, people would still find that out and
support you, but it would be more difficult and you'd have to be on television a lot. What he did
was, it was really, in an odd way, somewhat similar - there was a Governor of Illinois named
Dan Walker who walked the whole State, because of his last name and he thought that - and
Lawton Chiles did that in Florida. And Prox didn't exactly walk the whole State, but it was really
quite similar. People have to see you. They absolutely have to see you in politics. If they don't
see you, they don't know you. And so yeah, I think the handshaking and the integrity that went
along with it, were the reasons he got elected.
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 20 Proxmire Oral History Project Do you think he got that from anyone? Or did he come up with that himself? Do you know
anything about who his mentors were?
When he came out of the Army and came to Wisconsin, he was from northern Illinois, north
shore of Chicago. He, for a brief period of time, was the labor reporter for The Capital Times.
Labor liked him very much. He got to know all the labor people. Then he went into the
Assembly, I think in 1950, in Dane County, Sun Prairie area, in that area. And I suspect it was that semi-rural area where, you know, farm breakfasts - you had to meet people. How else were
you going to campaign? And then I think it occurred to him that he could do this Statewide.
So 1978 was your first run?
Right.
And that was unsuccessful. What kind of involvement did you have, then, after that with Proxmire
and with the Democratic Party?
In 1981, I ran for the Party Chairmanship and won. And again in 1983, and Proxmire -1 stayed
in touch with him, and he - there's one anecdote, which I enjoyed very much. I think it was in
1980 . . . when would it have been ... '83 or '84. I suspect it was probably 1984, because he was
- no, I take it back - 1982. He was up for election in 1982. So in 1982, the Democratic Party's
convention was in - it was either Appleton or Oshkosh. It was in the Fox River Valley. The Dane
County Democratic Party - the Democratic Party had started to split a little bit back then. It had
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 21 Proxmire Oral History Project been very unified in the '70s, but by the '80s, you had a more Progressive wing, or so they
considered themselves, coming in. In any event, they, for some reason, they were kind of across the board looking to toss out the old guard. And so some of them invited Scott McCallum, who
was his opponent - he was a State Senator at the time and he was Proxmire's Republic opponent
- to speak at the Democratic Convention without asking me. I was the Chairman. And, of course, that's a no-no. You can't do that. So when I found out, one of the labor guys came up to me and
said, "They're trying to sneak Scott McCallum in the hall." So I went over to the door and Scott
was there with his - and he later became acting Governor of Wisconsin when [Tommy]
Thompson left in '01 - but McCallum was there with his wife and his baby son. And I said,
"Well, Scott, you can't come in." And so he said, "No, I've been invited." I said, "Well, I'm the
Chairman. You can't come in." So then he tried to sneak in another door. They went around - this may have been Oshkosh, actually - and they went around and he tried to sneak in another
door. And I said, "No," and made him go out. So the next day, there was a article in The Cap
Times. The headline said, "Flynn Throws McCallum, Wife and Infant Son Out on the Sidewalk,"
something like that.
Hour 1/30:10 Role of Democratic Chair, Democratic Party's View of BP, BP's Political Independence
And I got a call, didn't identify himself, but picked up the phone and it was just this, "Ha, ha,
ha," laughing. It was Proxmire. He loved that. And then I tried to help him in the '82 campaign. I
mean, he didn't need any help. But I would attack McCallum for him, and he liked that. And then Fred Dupperault would call me up sometimes - Fred was his aide - and say, "Would you
and Mary (my wife) pick him up at the airport?" So I remember one time we picked him on a
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 22 Proxmire Oral History Project Friday night. It was the first time. And I thought it was a great honor, and we'd take him out to
dinner and we were deciding what restaurant. Proxmire, you know - most of the Senate live high
on the hog, they really do. Proxmire really lived the way he talked. And we picked him up -
"No," he didn't want to go - and he had a binder of Committee notes and evidence that he was
reading on a bill. And we took him to a Kohls and he bought - I think it was a Kohls - and he
bought olives, bread, and buttermilk. And we took him to a Budgetel, which was a cheap hotel
on the northwest side, and dropped him off. That's what he wanted. He was going to read these
materials in the evening by himself, and drink buttermilk and eat olives and bread. There was not
another Senator, any of the others, even the phony ones who, you know, say that they're - you
know, that kind of thing - that would have done that, not a single other one.
77e was quite an eccentric that way.
Yeah. Well, unfortunately people view plain living and honesty as eccentric. And, you know,
lately it has been. But yes, in that respect, he was.
So you were the Democratic Party Chair starting in 1981.
Right.
What did that roll entail and what was the relationship between the Democratic Party and
Proxmire at the time?
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 23 Proxmire Oral History Project I was fortunate because, at least personally, when I was the Democratic Party Chair, we didn't
have a Democratic Governor. If you have a Democratic Governor, the Chair, in effect, serves at the pleasure of the Governor. You know, he or she's the Governor's person. But if there is no
Governor, the Chair has a larger role. And so Lee Dreyfus had beaten Marty Schreiber in '78. So
until Tony Earl got elected in '82, for the first two years of my Chairmanship -because he
wasn't sworn in until January of '83 - the first two years, I was friendly with the legislative
leaders, and I certainly viewed my job as trying to elect them and more Democrats. Bill Proxmire
had always had the capacity to run despite the Party. For instance, in the '50s, he ran - Jim
Doyle, the present Governor's father, ran against him in primaries. And Proxmire ran with some
Party support, but with broader support than that. So he never tried to dictate or really got
himself involved in Party matters in the '80s when I was active. But I liked him very much. And
so I would stay in touch with him and his staff.
Were there ever any controversial issues where the Democratic Party wanted him to, I don't
know, get subsidies or bring some money back to Wisconsin and he didn't?
No. No, no, no. I mean, he represented Wisconsin well. I don't think, outside of a few disaffected
people in Dane County, the Democratic Party with the McCallum incident, that people were well
satisfied with his service. And no, I never detected that at all. In 1983 - Tony Earl was sworn in
January of '83, so I had a good relationship with Tony. He ended up being one of my law
partners here at Quarles and Brady. Obviously I dealt more with the Governor's office and with the leadership in the legislature than with the Senate or the Congressional; Les Aspin, was a very
good friend of mine. And I knew Dave Obey and worked with him. Jerry Kleczka came in when
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 24 Proxmire Oral History Project Henry Reuss stepped down. So I think that we always - and Clem Zablocki stepped down, and
Jim Moody came in. I really didn't interact as much with the Congressional Delegation as I did
on a day-to-day basis with the Governor's office and with the legislative leadership.
Let me ask you, then, another question about this 1982 Proxmire campaign, because you always
hear that he didn't spend any money. Did he do any fundraising?
No.
So there was really no money spent?
Well, you'll have to talk to John Finerty. He was his treasurer. But there has to be - you know,
when you say, "No money spent," you mail out nomination papers. You have to print nomination
papers. There's certain things you have to do that arguably require - now, there are minimum
levels below what you don't have to report. So I don't know. But I can tell you that any money that was spent was, I think, in the hundreds of dollars in the sense that, you know, I've heard that
- for instance, people would send him contributions. You'd have to mail them back. Well, the
postage would cost something. So, I don't know -1 think it would be a true statement that he
raised and spent no money. I don't view postage to mail contributions back as raising and
spending money by definition.
Do you remember what his platform was in 1982?
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 25 Proxmire Oral History Project Well, in 1982, he'd been in the Senate twenty-five years. So his platform is his identity and is his
experience. He was a Democrat. He was a very good friend of Jack Kennedy's. In fact, going
back when they were both in the Senate in the late '50s, there's a great story that Ellen
Proxmire's daughters tell where when he got re-elected in '58, he invited Jack and Jackie over to
dinner at their house. So they came over, and his girls, who were then ten and twelve, were
supposed to take the coats. And Jackie showed up with a fur coat, so the girls spent the evening trying on her fur coat and running around the second floor - it was very cute. But the point is, he
was always well regarded by the entire Party: Humphrey, Kennedy, the whole gamut of liberal
moderate conservative Democrats all liked Bill Proxmire and trusted Bill Proxmire. So in terms
of what his platform was in '82, it'd be really like saying, "What was any Democratic Senator's
platform from a Midwest or Eastern State?" He spoke in favor of the Genocide Treaty every day.
He didn't miss a vote for years. He was a stalwart Democrat; very pro-labor.
Some of my reading, they talk about him as a maverick or as an Independent, and I guess that's
one of the questions I have is he didn't seem to be a strict Party loyalist.
I don't think that is accurate. I differ with that in the sense that people might say John McCain
wasn't a strict party loyalist because he perhaps voted for certain things that pushed him more
into - a few might say that Russ Feingold's not a strict party loyalist. I think that absolutely does
not capture Bill Proxmire. When they talk to him as a maverick, I think it's more bucking kind of
Washington culture, lifestyle and fundraising. But he was a loyalist's loyalist when it came to
upholding Democratic principles and supporting Democratic candidates.
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 26 Proxmire Oral History Project Okay. Tell me a little bit about your law career and how that interfaced, if at all, with some of his work on the Banking Committee and the Securities and Exchange Commissions.
No. There was no interface at all. I was only starting out back in '76 and I do commercial litigation. I don't advise on mergers and acquisitions or banking issues. And if I had half a dozen cases involving banks in my entire thirty-two year career so far, it'd be a lot. And so I've never discussed any client or any business or anything like that with him. My law practice probably benefitted less from my political involvement than anybody's in the history of this country, because most people become lobbyists or they do deals, that kind of thing. I don't do that. I'm a litigator.
Were there certain political successes of his you 'd like to comment on over the years? Some things that he worked tirelessly on?
In 1976, I think it was - either '72 or '76,1 should have brought them in - he was probably mentioned as a potential Presidential candidate.
Yeah. It was actually '72.
HOUR 1/39:55 Campaigning with BP, BP's Beliefs on Social Issues, Golden Fleece Awards, BP's Speculated Reaction to Social Issues Today
I have at home some campaign matches - those were very big in those days - "Proxmire for
President." And I think that was a testimony to his stature. I think his fight on the Genocide
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 27 Proxmire Oral History Project Treaty and his standing up on human rights abuses in other countries was important. I admired it
very much. He was a very strong proponent for Civil Rights and for labor. I remember one time
when I was running for the Senate, he campaigned for me up on Green Bay. And occasionally this happens to you.
This was 1986 when you were running?
This was in '86.
Okay.
A guy comes up, and this was in some kind of a - it was like a fair or festival of some sort in
Green Bay. And occasionally you'll get people coming up who are just terrible people and they'll say racist things. They're just vicious. And that hasn't happened to me very often, and
when it does, I oppose them. But not every politician opposes them. Some will just sort of brush them off or not say anything because they don't want to offend them. Proxmire and I were there
and a guy came up and said some very, very racist things. And Proxmire engaged him very, very
bitterly and insulted the man, essentially, and clearly lost him and all ofhis associates forever.
And he didn't hesitate in doing that, not even a nanosecond. And that wouldn't be true of a lot of
politicians, believe me. I mean, you have no idea what some politicians either say or tolerate
being said in their presence when you're not around. Well, with Proxmire, you knew what he
would do outside of your presence. And I think that's what a lot of people liked about him.
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 28 Proxmire Oral History Project Do you have any idea of what influenced him or shaped him to become such a straight shooter?
I don't know. His father was a doctor, I think. I don't know what his mother's background is.
Although Pat Lucey once told me, he said - this is the former Governor and Ambassador - he
said, "What do I, Bill Proxmire, and Gaylord Nelson all have in common other than being
Democrats?" I said, "I don't know." He said, "We all have Irish mothers." And that happens to
be true. But I don't know what Proxmire's mother's employment history was or anything. I just think he was a very good guy, and that was a great generation. It was a generation in Wisconsin
of Bill Proxmire, Pat Lucey, Jim Doyle, it was Horace Wilkie. I mean, it was a really - you
occasionally get a strong generation of people, and that a good, strong generation.
And you have an Irish mother as well.
I do. I have an Irish father, however, unlike the other two; although Pat Lucey does, too.
(laughter)
Any other successes or his strong political beliefs that you want to comment on?
Well, labor can be considered one ofhis strongest proponents; the Civil Rights Movement. You
know, now it's almost laughable to use the term "Civil Rights Movement." But back in the '70s, that was still a very coherent term and it was a term that made a lot of difference. And certainly
on civil rights issues, he was a very, very strong champion. Those would be the two, I think, and
human rights for the Genocide Treaty; those three, actually.
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 29 Proxmire Oral History Project And do you remember any of the Golden Fleece Awards? Did you follow that?
I can't recite any. I remember there was one where he was sued for libel. And the Senate voted to
defend him and pay his attorney's fees, which I thought was exactly the right thing to do. But
with Ellen Proxmire, we had tried to - one of the TV networks had started to use that term and they were going to give Golden Fleece Awards. And so I wrote them letters and we talked about
possibly trademarking it or involving them in paying something to the Wisconsin Historical
Society. It never went anywhere, but I think he basically - that concept may not have been new
in terms of opposing waste, but his personalizing it that way was unique. But no, I don't
remember any of the particular Fleeces.
Do you think it was successful in its curbing [waste]?
Well, its criticism, I think - it would have been more necessary, frankly, oddly enough under
Republican administrations than Democratic, under Bush's administration. But that was more
outright theft and securities fraud. What Proxmire did, I think, was focus attention on people
being watchdogs of spending. There's an interesting run up, though, as to why he did that. In
1958, he ran for a full term and got it, to '64. But in '64, he had a very difficult election even though Lyndon Johnson was carrying the top of the ticket. And he almost lost, or he thought he
was going to lose. And his opponent referred to him as "Billion Dollar Bill," because he'd voted
for some spending programs. And that experience in 1964 is what caused him, in my view, after that to make that a prime issue the other way, because ofhis experience of being called "Billion
Dollar Bill."
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 30 Proxmire Oral History Project Did his focus on frugality ever conflict with, you think, some of the spending that, as a Democrat,
he did want to see passed?
No. I mean, if you take a look at all the spending - The Great Society passed, the CETA
[Comprehensive Employment and Training Act] program in the '70s passed. And then when
Reagan got in, it was more diverting it and hurting student loans at the expense of unproductive tax breaks. What was really too bad is if a guy like Proxmire had been in the Senate when
George Bush was President and opposed the massive securities fraud and theft, basically, and the
self-dealing on defense contracts, that's where it would have come in handy, really handy.
We might not have been in this economic mess in quite the same way?
Well, my own view is if Al Gore had been - and he was actually elected in 2000 - but if he had
gotten in there, this business of really decoupling regulation from a lot of - I mean, it's sort of
undoing The New Deal in some respects, from a regulatory point of view. But that's water over the dam.
As Chairman of the Banking Committee, was Proxmire for regulation as far as you know?
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. In other words - mind you, he left the Senate in '88. That was
his last term. It expired in '88, which was the end of Reagan's second term. So that kind of thing
didn't come up as an issue the way it has now. But certainly while he was in there - I'm talking
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 31 Proxmire Oral History Project about elementary regulation that FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] put in. Yeah, absolutely he
was supportive of that.
What about these bailouts that you hear of today? What do you think he would feel about that?
It's hard to speculate. There are aspects of it, I think, that he would have strongly opposed:
executive compensation. You know, the original suggestions had been carte blanche, turn over the cash, and let these same thieves continue to do what they were doing before. I think he would
have opposed that. I think he would have been sympathetic to bailing out the auto industry, but that's pure speculation. You know, this is a different era. It's like asking what would a Senator in the 1840s have done in the 1910s, you know?
Do you think he could have survived in today's political climate withfout] raising — no campaign
contributions?
Well, that's an interesting question. It's hard to say because would anybody vote for a Senator today who was first elected in '57? But if you transported him to today, no. But then I would say to you that he, himself, didn't campaign that way in '57. You know, starting out, you can't do that. Now could Herb Kohl right now, for instance, who is I think a very popular Senator, could
he campaign without raising any money? Well he does campaign without raising any money. He
puts his own in. Could he not do that? I think yes, if he attracted opposition that was weak,
because he has such stature. But if either Proxmire or Kohl nowadays faced a very, very intense
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 32 Proxmire Oral History Project - you know, a Republican opponent such as - say a Tommy Thompson - no, you'd have to raise
money, sure, or spend money, sure.
Do you have any thoughts on his political failures, if he had any?
Well, his political failures - he ran for the Governorship three times: in '50, '52, and c56. They
were the wrong times. The Democratic Party hadn't yet gotten there. But he absolutely was
indefatigable as a campaigner. And a lot of people said by c56, "Why are you doing it again?" -
'57, "C'mon, give me a break." But his failures he turned into success. And, you know, frankly,
Abraham Lincoln had a very similar background. He ran a number of times and lost. And
Proxmire believed in himself. Lincoln believed in himself.
How did he influence you?
HOUR 1/50:00 BP's Later Years/Alzheimer's, MF's Continuing Contact with BF's Family, BP's Legacy
Well, I liked him very much. I think that his honesty, his approach to campaigning, and without
his name recognition, even though we'd raise money - probably spent more time going door to
door and shaking hands - didn't really make sense in a modern campaign. Like in the last
Congressional campaign, I'd go to all these neighborhoods. And it was nice. I enjoyed it. But that's not the way it's done nowadays. So that's more methodology. We had very similar
positions on labor issues, Civil Rights issues, human rights issues. I think it's more admiring
somebody who'd actually done it, and done it successfully and done it on his own terms and
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 33 Proxmire Oral History Project done it well. I never met Jack Kennedy. I felt the same about him and Bobby Kennedy. I felt, on
a much different level, I liked Allard Lowenstein and what he did. You know, they're just people that I think are good people; Les Aspin, I liked him.
You ran for Congress again in '88? Wait. . . you ran for Senate in '86 and then Congress in '88
and 2004?
Yeah.
Was he involved in the '88 campaign?
Yeah. He did a TV commercial for me in '86 and '88 and campaigned in both of them, yeah.
Tell me about these later years in his career. Did you notice a slowing down at all?
Well, in '86 and '88 I didn't, but he was coming to the end ofhis service in '88. The last time I
saw him was at the Clinton inaugural in '93. And my wife and I went out. We had dinner with
Bill Proxmire and Ellen at Lavandou, which is a restaurant in Georgetown. It was one of their
favorites near their home. Ellen told me at that dinner that he was already starting to slip. And there was an instance of it. He was engaged - it was apparently one of the last times he went out
- and he was happy, engaged. We had a wonderful discussion. He was lucid; except on one
occasion, he said, "You know, at the 1960 convention in San Francisco," that was where Jack
Kennedy got nominated. He recalled this and this and he said, "Matt, we had a good time there,
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 34 Proxmire Oral History Project didn't we?" And I obviously was thirteen at the time, twelve actually. So I was not there. Now
some people who are getting on in years can, you know, mix some things up. And Ellen told me that even in '88, she had found some literature in his office about Alzheimer's, so he clearly was
concerned about it. And that's probably why he didn't run for re-election.
Did you talk to him about it at all?
No.
No.
Well, no. Because the first I ever saw any evidence of it was at dinner in '93 and then I never
saw him again.
Did he cite it as a reason for not running again?
No. He never acknowledged it that I know of.
So '93 was the last time you saw him?
Right.
And he died in 2005. Did you maintain contact with his family at all?
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 35 Proxmire Oral History Project Was it '05 he died?
Yeah.
Yeah. I had forgotten the exact year. Yes, we've maintained contact with Ellen and then his
daughter, Mary Ellen and Jan. We've probably seen them almost once a year. Had them over to
our house for brunch or over at Mary Ellen's for dinner or out to a restaurant. Ellen Proxmire
was active in this Alzheimer's foundation that Chief Justice Roberts is active in, because his
father was at the same facility Bill Proxmire was in. The Chief Justice's father just died about a
month ago. And in November we flew out and attended a dinner at the Supreme Court that the
Chief Justice was hosting. And Ellen Proxmire was one of the chief moving forces. So yeah, at
least once a year and we exchange cards and we e-mail and so on.
Speaking of Ellen, was she a chief mover in his political career?
I think so; yeah, absolutely. I don't know about the gubernatorial races, but certainly - she, as I
recall, had been an Executive Director, or at least some very senior staff person in the
Democratic Party. So I think she definitely was. She's terrific.
Looking back as we are doing today, do you think he has a lasting legacy?
Yeah; oh, absolutely.
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 36 Proxmire Oral History Project And what is it?
Well, I think - there's a couple of them. On one level, if you were to ask the average person in the State, not a political scientist, but the average person, to name three Senators, other than those in office right now, who have served Wisconsin, it would probably be Fighting Bob
LaFollette, Bill Proxmire and then somebody else, in terms of number one. Number two, I think that he was part of a generation in the Senate, with John Kennedy, Henry Jackson, Hubert
Humphrey, who stood for what I would say were consensus Democratic values throughout the
'50s, '60s, '70s and into the '80s, till the Party started to fracture. I think his watchfulness on
waste, I think his human rights commitment, Civil Rights, and his work on labor bills and labor
issues, absolutely were a strong legacy.
Is there anything else about him we haven't covered, either in his personal world or his personal
style?
Well, there were a couple of other actors. By the way, what time is it right now? Do you want to
grab some lunch downstairs?
We could take a little break. We 're at about the end of the first hour.
Well, why don't we finish the first hour. Is that how you do these things?
Okay, that 'sfine. Alright, we '11 take a break right here.
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 37 Proxmire Oral History Project Okay, good.
HOUR 2
Hour 2/00:00 BP Anecdotes, BP Legacy
Okay. This is hour number two of my interview with Matt Flynn on January 5 , 2009. There
were a couple of other anecdotes that you wanted to tell me about Proxmire.
Yeah. I remember one time we were driving around the State during the Senate race and he was
campaigning with me. So it was a snowstorm and we were in Green Bay. We had to get to
Madison. So he would climb in the backseat. And he wore kind of eye shades, and he would just
sleep. He could sleep anywhere. And he just got down so you couldn't really see him. He got in the back seat. And he had a bag of carrots. It was like a paper bag from a grocery store. And they
were the kind of carrots that still had the skin on them, you know? In other words, they were just
carrots, basically. And he would just - occasionally he'd lie in the back seat and occasionally
reach in the bag, take out a carrot and eat it. And all the way from Green Bay to Madison, he just
slept in the back seat and ate carrots. And then another time - you know he was the least
pretentious guy - another time, his staff called and said that there was a Democratic Party
meeting in Wood County in Wisconsin Rapids at a supper club. And I was going to speak at it,
and he wanted to speak at it, too. So, great! So, I got up there. And it was raining really hard, and
he wasn't there. And I was standing at the door. Suddenly a car pulls up and Prox gets out - all
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 38 Proxmire Oral History Project by himself, no security, no driver - walks through the rain, gave a great speech. And at the end,
we said, "Well, do you want to stay and having something to eat or maybe have a drink and stay
over in Wisconsin Rapids?" and "Nope." Walks out to the car and, by himself, just drives off in the dark in the rain; presumably to some other small town. And I don't think there's any other
Senator in the country, quite frankly, then or now, who would do that. They'd be accompanied
by staff. They'd be accompanied, perhaps, by security. They'd have much more of an itinerary
and an agenda. And he would simply go from town to town and then just walk into the
businesses on Main Street, walk into the newspaper office, and then shake as many hands as he
could.
You mentioned his personal habits a bit. Tell me a little more; eating carrots and buttermilk.
Buttermilk, olives, bread, carrots.
How about socializing and drinking and being around people that way?
I never saw him take a drink, an alcoholic drink. I never saw him exercise. I think he jogged and that kind of thing. At one point, I think he was actually mugged in Washington while he was jogging, and fortunately came out of it alright. But he was very thin. He was in very good shape.
I think he could do a lot of pushups, that kind of thing. And I think that he just was disciplined to
a degree that you don't meet in most people.
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 39 Proxmire Oral History Project Did he seem happy? Did it seem more compulsive or did he seem driven in a way that satisfied
him? Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. He seemed happy to me, absolutely. He had a family life that supported this, and his wife
supported it. If you think about it, from 1950 to 1988-that's thirty-eight years-every two years
he either ran for office or was in office. So '50, '52, '54 -
'56, '57.
c56, '57, '58 and then after that every six years, but he was in office campaigning the whole time.
So that was his life. It'd be like a career military guy who spent all his time deployed overseas
somewhere. I mean, that was his life, and he was devoted to it.
Did you ever have any conversations about his personal life with him?
No. No, he was not very expressive. I'm not all that overly expressive, either. So we had no
inclination or opportunity to say anything.
Okay. Any other anecdotes that came to mind in our little break?
Well, I think I've gone over a number of them, and ones that I really enjoy remembering. You
know, just standing next to him on so many occasions where he did shake hands and campaign,
people not only knew him, they liked him and they'd come and joke with him. And he had an
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 40 Proxmire Oral History Project ability - he didn't tell me this, but I've heard this from others - that he wouldn't stay talking to
anybody for more than, I think, four minutes; and that was a long time, say, on the phone. And it
was probably a lot less than that. But he had a very engaging way of disengaging, so that it
wasn't seen as an insult or made you feel bad. But, you know, you get these crackpots and cranks
who would talk to you all day if they had half a chance. And he knew how to disengage.
How did he do that?
Well, "That's marvelous. That's wonderful. Thank you," and then he'd just turn to somebody
else. But he did it in a very nice way; did it in a very nice way.
77e wrote several books. Did you happen to read any of them?
You know, I've never read his books. I've never read his books.
Several were on exercise and health.
Is that right? Yeah.
Some of them were on spending, defense spending, the military.
You know, I think that he obviously had a mature political philosophy as he went through the
Senate, and I think he accomplished very much what he wanted to accomplish. I never really
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 41 Proxmire Oral History Project spoke to him either about personal matters or about issues or about matters outside of politics.
But he enjoyed talking about politics. I did, too. And that's what we talked about.
77e was an economics buff.
Um-hmm (affirmatively), right.
Do you consider yourself one?
No. No, mine is more Spanish, Latin and Greek.
Okay.
I mean, look, I'm conversed with economic issues, and certainly as far as - you know, when I
ran for office and I had some very definite ideas on - especially after a lifetime litigating a lot of these issues - on regulatory, banking, monetary, trade issues, but it's not a prime study in my
life. And it may have been in his, I'm not sure. I mean, he was Chairman of the Banking
Committee.
Do you know anybody that he had conflict with, or any controversies in politics?
Other than the Dane County Democratic Party in 1982. No, I don't. I think even the Republicans
liked him. The one person who would occasionally take him on in public was Henry Maier, the
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 42 Proxmire Oral History Project Mayor of Milwaukee. And that was largely on issues of urban funding, you know, that kind of thing. But that was very much in the mainstream of economic discourse. And certainly not on a
personal level, I never saw anybody that took him on.
Would you classify him as a hawk or a dove? Did you have conversations about that?
No. In those terms, it depends. If you ask somebody, "Were you a hawk and a dove in 1941,
1966, or 2001 ?" What does that mean, you know? I think that he was very much against wasteful
military spending, and he was not an interventionist. And I don't think he - had he been
President, I think he would have been, in some respects, more like Eisenhower who - you know,
Eisenhower's the one who, they all wanted him to go into Vietnam in 1954 and he refused, for
good reason - because he knew what war was like. And Proxmire knew what defense spending
was like and what war was like. And I think hawk and dove are two kind of mono-dimensional terms for somebody like him.
We 've talked a lot about what his legacy might be. What do you think it should be? Do you think politicians could take some lessons from his career today?
Yeah. I think that the Wisconsin Democratic Party and other people -1 know that he had a
number of friends in Congress who, when he died, there was a testimonial for him in, and [they]
rallied around him. But, you know, in an odd way, making a name for yourself by integrity and
not spending is much more difficult than being associated with a more proactive issue. And so
you have Gaylord Nelson with Earth Day, which is really a very nice thing, but sort of a
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 43 Proxmire Oral History Project gimmick, you know - Earth Day. And environmental legislation, what it's really all about - I think that Proxmire was a strong - you know, all the Democratic Senators were strong. So, if you
want to look at it this way, from a marketing perspective, Proxmire didn't market himself so as to create a legacy. I think that other people did, and I have no quarrel with that, but I think it's
more knowing him. He served the country well. It benefitted from him. It benefitted from his
service.
Hour 2/10:00 The Genocide Treaty, Importance of BP's Service to Wisconsin, Fragmentation of Democratic Party, Future of Political Parties, BP's Influence on Current Wisconsin Politicians
Any other thoughts on his legislating or his public speaking abilities? Did you get a chance to
hear him on the Senate floor?
I never heard him on the Senate floor. I heard him give a number of speeches. And he was in
excellent order, and kept people's attention, and people listened to him. And I think people just trusted him and assumed that things were in good hands when he was involved. But I don't
associate him - you know, you associate, say famous speeches with John Kennedy or FDR or
Obama or Lincoln, you know, that kind of a thing? I don't know that there's a single speech he
gave that I could point to. But on the other hand, his strong -1 think the symbolism on his fight
for the Genocide Treaty shouldn't be discounted. I mean, you know, there were people - when
Richard Nixon was Vice President in 1956, he invited to give the invocation one time a guy
named Valerian Trifa, who was a - essentially a Nazi collaborator in Romania. And there were
people in the Congress, there were people in the government of the United States who, in the
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript AA Proxmire Oral History Project '50s and '60s were not - what I would say is - who didn't really share Proxmire's approach towards the Genocide Treaty and a lot of other things. What he did took a lot of courage, and it
wasn't obvious. Nowadays, everybody says, "Oh, he gave the same speech every day, that's
obvious." Well, you know, no it's not at all obvious if you knew anything about the history back then. Everybody's very spoiled, you know. They think of the '70s and '80s and that that's how it
always was. That isn't how it always was.
What was the opposition to the Genocide Convention if people today think, "Well, what could
the US have had against it? " Do you know?
Well, I couldn't tell you. I can tell you what I think it would have been, although I don't think - I
haven't studied the issue. But there are an awful lot of people that don't like to see us engage in
any kind of treaties. In other words, environmental treaties, extradition treaties, human rights treaties - because you don't want some foreign court coming in and saying, "The Supreme Court
of Georgia should be removed," or that kind of thing. So it's really a sovereignty question.
Okay. So in that case, his legislative tactic was just sort of this tirelessness.
Right.
This sort of doggedness to keep going. Do you think that was indicative of how he legislated, or
was he somebody who made a lot of deals?
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 45 Proxmire Oral History Project He didn't make a lot of deals the way Lyndon Johnson would. I think he was absolutely capable
of compromising when principle wasn't involved. In other words, you don't get everything you
want. I mean, he wasn't one of these people that would never vote for legislation. But I think that
he would not compromise if strong principle was involved. And I liked that about him.
Right. You said that he used to wear bandages on his hand. I wanted to get that story in.
Yeah, I think from time to time when he was shaking hands he'd wear - yeah, I think it'd be
more like adhesive tape type - on his hands. It might be band aides or adhesive tape - because
when you shake that many hands, it can cut your hand. It can cut it open. And so he would, on
occasion, shake hands with that kind of bandaging on it. And it was important to him how many
hands he shook. He had a clicker in his pocket, and he would click it whenever he shook a hand.
Well, he's definitely a complex character. Anything else that we haven't covered?
No. I'm delighted. I'm very supportive of the Historical Society's mission here and Ellen
Proxmire's. I'm delighted that you're doing all this primary material. I've enjoyed it and I do
hope that an author is found to put these interviews that you've done into shape, in a book form
and draw some conclusions. Because I think he's an important figure in Wisconsin history, and I think among Senators, he and - well, Fighting Bob LaFollette - would rank at the top, and there
are others. But, quite frankly, I think Bill Proxmire would rank in anybody's list of top three
Senators in the State's history.
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 46 Proxmire Oral History Project Do you have any further political aspirations for yourself?
No. I'm helping other people; you know, the Governor, Jim Doyle. No, I've been there. I've
done it a number of times. And it's fascinating. I love doing it. But the Party's changed quite a
bit in the last thirty years since I've been involved. It's very, very fragmented and winning a
primary -1 think that right now in the Democratic Party, the challenge is winning a primary with
some coherent set of principles. In a general election, it would be of great interest to me to debate those issues with a Republican opponent. But in the primary, it's almost become theological
differences of, you know, billionths of an inch of people on different issues and the various
interest groups in the Party.
What do you think accounts for that fragmentation?
I think that starting in the early '80s - throughout the '70s, the Party, itself, counted for
something; it really did. Starting in the early '80s, politicians started to campaign more on their
own and build up their own organizations. They needed the Party less. Groups like Jobs with
Peace, which now would be Wisconsin Citizen Action, the nuclear freeze movement, people
clustered around different issues. You know, now it might be Emily's List, it might be the
Congressional Black Caucus, and then labor is split seven ways from Sunday, among public
unions, industrial unions, conservative unions, liberal unions, the SEIU [Service Employees
International Union]. So what you have is - in the old days, you'd have Civil Rights and labor,
maybe. You know, that kind of thing. Now, you have nine or ten very, very sharply focused
interest groups who all are looking for somebody who champions only their interest, even at the
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 47 Proxmire Oral History Project expense of other Democratic interests, and who will not only, if they seize on a candidate, will
campaign in the primary against the other candidates, who are Democrats, as being antithetical to their interests, which is untrue in an overall sense against Republicans. And then when you try to
survive that, you know, going into a -1 didn't have to survive it in '78 because it was still the traditional Democratic Party and labor and everybody came together. But starting in the '80s and
'90s - in a Wisconsin election, the primary's in September. The general's in November. The
general's eight or nine weeks away, but you spend a year fighting your own Party; and
everybody does it - I mean, groups in their own Party. And then you try to bind that together.
And I don't enjoy doing that, frankly. And I think what ultimately may end up happening is that
both parties are going to split into different - in other words, the Republican Party right now has
sort of business Republicans with moderate stands on social issues and Evangelicals, you know,
very hard right individuals. And it's hard for me to see that maintaining itself - you know, some
with a strong racial context. In the Democratic Party, it's very hard for me to see a lot of
mainstream Democrats permitting the Party to be, in essence, a front for, you know, one or two
absolute sub-splinters of sub-splinters. And so the people that have been the most effective are
like a Jim Doyle, a Russ Feingold, who can start out looking like they're representing the sub-
splinters and then sort of reach out. But then they end up getting attacked eventually. And I think, you know, if you take a look at Britain in the early 20 Century, you know, the Liberal
Party a hundred years ago was strong. Now it barely exists. And so I think we'll always have two
parties; they won't split into three or four or more like the European countries, but what will the
character of the Democratic and Republican parties be in twenty years? I don't know. Maybe the
Republican Party will squeeze out the race baiters and the Evangelicals and incorporate moderate
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 48 Proxmire Oral History Project Democrats who are moderate on economic issues. It may be the other way around: the
Evangelicals take over and moderate Republicans come into the Democratic Party. I don't know.
We '11 have to do another interview in twenty years and see.
Yeah. Well, I hope we're both - well you'll be around. But, you know, hopefully I'll be around.
Yeah, yeah. Do you think that any of our current Wisconsin politicians have taken their cues or
any of Proxmire's tactics and used them in their own political careers?
I think they've tried to. Ron Kind, who's a Congressman from LaCrosse and Eau Claire, had
been an intern for Proxmire. And he invokes Proxmire quite a bit, and it'd be interesting to talk to him to see. I think he gets out and shakes a lot of hands. Mark Marotta - who ran for Congress
in Milwaukee, who I supported, is a terrific guy - interned for Proxmire also and very much
emulates him. I did, to the best of my ability, when I ran. As far as incumbents right now, other than Ron Kind, I can't think of anybody. Herb Kohl would come as close as any, I think, in the
sense that Herb does get around; not quite to the extent Proxmire does because he doesn't have to, but he invokes his name quite a bit.
But none of them are kind of the spending hawks that Proxmire was?
That's probably true; Kind maybe a little bit.
Matthew Flynn interview Transcript 49 Proxmire Oral History Project Anything else? I think you 've done a wonderful job.
No, thank you. You're a great interviewer.
Oh, well. You made it easy. Thank you for letting me interview you.
No, thank you. Thank you for coming by.
Matthew Flynn Interview Transcript 50 Proxmire Oral History Project