Sturdevant: Oct. 16, 1978: A full day, and he was there

Dr. Morrison Hodges has a story you've just got to hear.

By LORI STURDEVANT, Star Tribune

Last update: April 7, 2010


Would I like to meet a former Republican who was an eyewitness to populist hostility in northeastern Minnesota and to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy's presidential candidacy revelation, all on the same historic day in 1978?

With a come-on like that from Minneapolis City Council Member Betsy Hodges, how could I refuse? Soon I was swapping stories and talking a little health care policy with the former head of cardiology at Hennepin County Medical Center, Dr. Morrison Hodges -- Betsy's dad.

His story is too good to keep to myself.

Hodges is the only member of his large Arkansas family to move to Minnesota and the only physician in a family of attorneys and politicians. In 1978, he was the only Republican in a family of Democrats that included Arkansas U.S. Sen. Kaneaster Hodges Jr., his brother.

Sen. Hodges prevailed on his colleague, Ted Kennedy, to come to Arkansas to speak at an event honoring Hodges' late father on Oct. 16, 1978. Kennedy agreed -- and allowed that he'd be coming from Minnesota, where he would be stumping for a Democratic senator in a tough election battle, Wendell Anderson.

That inspired another request: Could Morrison Hodges meet Kennedy in Hibbing and hitch a plane ride to Arkansas?

That's how an alternate delegate to the 1978 Minnesota GOP state convention wound up in a car in Virginia, Minn., with two Democratic U.S. senators, being pelted with eggs and rocks. State troopers hustled the dignitaries -- who also included Gov. Rudy and Lola Perpich -- into a motel room to regroup and arrange an earlier-than-scheduled wheels-up for Arkansas.

Northeastern Minnesotans were enraged that year over new federal restrictions on the use of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, not to mention the usual incendiaries: guns and abortion. (Minnesotans who think recent Tea Party protests represent a new low for political incivility need a refresher course on the 1960s and '70s.)

When they were finally in the air, Kennedy relaxed, poured a drink and pressed an Esquire magazine journalist to agree that anything said on the plane was off the record. Then he showed Hodges a notebook labeled "Kennedy 1980." It was a strategy outline for his still-secret plan to challenge President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination.

When they deplaned in Hodges' tiny hometown, Newport, a comedy of errors ensued in making connections with Hodges' several brothers. During the confusion, someone approached with the news that would make the day historic: A Polish cardinal had just been elected pope.

Kennedy laughed and blurted, "Here I am, running for president of the United States, and I'm standing in a used-car lot in Newport, Ark., with Hodges boys going here and Hodges boys going there; a Pole is the new pope, and I'm supposed to know what I'm talking about!"

He was off the airplane when he said it. The journalist was no longer bound to silence. The next month's Esquire broke the news that Kennedy would be running against Carter.
One more thing: At that night's event, Dr. Hodges met Arkansas' Democratic candidate for governor, Bill Clinton, and his wife, Hillary.

On the plane, Hodges remembers, Kennedy spoke about his desire to bring the benefits of health insurance to all Americans. In the ensuing years, Hodges came to agree with him -- and stopped attending Republican conventions. He retired from HCMC in 1995 and now does clinical research with the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation.

"I favor strongly a single-payer system," he said. More than half of the nation's physicians do -- especially primary-care doctors who see what lack of insurance does to patients' well-being, he said.

Hodges applauds the new health care law that was passed and wishes Kennedy would have lived long enough to see it. But he also said that the bill doesn't do enough to wring waste out of the system and control costs, and that the people who really understand American health care know it. He thinks that if he could have a private moment with Kennedy today, he might be permitted a preview peek at a notebook labeled "Single Payer 2017."

Lori Sturdevant is a Star Tribune editorial writer and columnist. She is at lsturdevant@startribune.com.

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