Moresky, a Ted Kennedy delegate in 1980, is now a prolific political fundraiser and a Hillary Clinton delegate to this month’s Democratic convention in Philadelphia.
It was the first year we had equal division, where women were half the convention. Every woman was swarmed with media. I was on the Today show. They were so amazed I was a homemaker who was a delegate for the first time.
The women’s movement organized the majority of the female Kennedy delegates. I would be in caucuses with Bella Abzug, Eleanor Smeal and Gloria Steinem, planning strategy on the floor. We had our own whips, like the Kennedy campaign and Carter campaign did, giving a thumbs up or down, how to vote on things.
It was the last year the delegates really had power. We were able to bring platform planks onto the floor of the convention by signing petitions. You really got to participate. We made alliances with the environmentalists, with the civil rights movement people, to support each other’s planks.
We didn’t know we were going to win, but we won the abortion plank by an enormous margin and the Equal Rights Amendment. I’ll never forget the excitement. The whole place went crazy. Gloria Steinem immediately called her hotel and reserved the entire ballroom. It was all so spontaneous!
During Ted Kennedy’s concession speech, people were crying. It was so emotional, one of his more prophetic speeches, when he said that “the dream shall never die.” He made a record afterward — an LP —- and sent it to all of us. People are still talking about it. — as told to Erick Trickey