She beckoned. We reckoned.
Back in June 1984, when I was working for another newspaper, a very secret source gave me my first national “scoop.”
Well, sort of.
It involved the formidable U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a trailblazer for women in politics who was buried this past week in San Francisco.
It was one of those exclusive stories that lasts about as long as it takes ice cream to melt; short and sweet — but delicious.
What I didn’t print — but knew — was who Democratic presidential contender Walter “Fritz” Mondale had chosen as his 1984 running mate: a woman who would make history as the nation’s first female veep choice.
My impeccable source, who did NOT want to be identified, was literally in the room where it happened — an emissary sent by private jet to pick up the “mystery” woman Mondale apparently had chosen as his veepmate and then on to Montana for the announcement.
It already was known Mondale might make history by selecting a woman as his ticket mate, and two women had become top contenders: then-San Francisco Mayor Feinstein, a brunette who was Jewish, and U.S. Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, a flaxen-haired New Yorker who was Roman Catholic.
The plane was heading to San Francisco to pick up Mondale’s choice, still unknown to my source.
Hmmm. San Francisco? Feinstein?
The source, compelled not to even disclose the name, immediately phoned me upon landing and whispered: “It’s the BLONDE!”
Due to the lack of a second source and unable to disclose mine, my co-authored column’s political tip — written the evening before its appearance in the newspaper’s morning edition — could report only: “It’s a GIRL!”
By then, the whole world would learn EXACTLY which “girl” Mondale had chosen as his running mate.
It also was reported Ferraro’s “placement” next to a very “sedate” Mondale was expected to give his campaign “flair.” It didn’t.
Ronald Reagan won with George Herbert Walker Bush as his vice presidential running mate.
Sound familiar? The old boy’s network continues.
And Ferraro was never elected to office again, while Feinstein became a political superstar.
The Trump stump
It’s the ultimate gaga MAGA moola move.
Chutzpah on steroids!
Claiming he is “a completely innocent man” forced to stand trial by “radical Democrats” aiming to “strip him of his properties,” Donald Trump is tossing his Mar-a-Lago estate into his MAGA fundraising mix.
That would be Trump’s Florida “home,” where the feds say he destroyed super-secret presidential files.
The Trumpster fundraiser blasts the New York attorney general’s attempt to “try and devalue” his “Mar-a-Lago home” by “99%!” So he is inviting his “patriots” to a reception at Mar-a-Lago on Oct. 26 to let them “be the judge of its value!”
The backshot: Trump, whom a New York judge found in a pretrial ruling engaged in fraud by inflating the value of prized assets, is now on trial for exaggerating his wealth in financial statements to banks and insurers.
The upshot: The Mar-a-Lago reception is timed “to commemorate being nearly one year away from the most important election in the history of our country,” states Trump, who asks his “patriots” to make “a contribution of any amount to WIN BACK the White House.”
Ka-ching!
Nuclear nabob
Ahoy! When America’s newest fast-attack, nuclear-powered submarine is commissioned Oct. 14 in Groton, Conn., a special Chicago contingent will be there to honor its heroic Chicago namesake — Adm. Hyman G. Rickover — whose immigrant family settled in North Lawndale in 1908. The former Rickover home at 1455 S. Hamlin Ave. still stands!
Rickover — the longest-serving (63 years) officer in the history of the Navy, winner of two Congressional Gold Medals, known as the “father of the nuclear Navy” — went to Lawson Elementary School and graduated with honors in 1918 from John Marshall High School while earning money delivering telegrams for Western Union.
The Chicago touch! Marc Schulman, whose mother also graduated from Marshall, is donating 2,000 servings of Eli’s Cheesecake at a ceremonial luncheon at Groton’s submarine base. In attendance will be 40 cadets from Chicago’s Hyman G. Rickover Military Academy.
Sneedlings
Condolences to the family of Most Rev. Kevin M. Birmingham, an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Chicago and former secretary to Cardinal Blase J. Cupich who died a few days shy of his 52nd birthday. Cupich flew back from a papal synod in Rome to officiate at the funeral this weekend. Saturday birthdays: Oliver North, 80, John Mellencamp, 72, Yo Yo Ma, 68, Simon Cowell, 64, Toni Braxton, 56, Joy Behar, 81. Sunday birthdays: Rev. Jesse Jackson, 82, Chevy Chase, 80, and Sigourney Weaver, 74.
