Pete McCloskey was a Republican representative from San Mateo County, California (a fairly wealthy area between Palo Alto and San Francisco) from 1967 to 1983. He was a decorated Marine veteran of the Korean War, but became a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, almost the only Republican congressperson to do so. He was on Nixon’s “enemies list” and called for Nixon’s resignation as early as 1971, and ran against him in primaries in 1972. He continued to be outspoken against later wars, and finally became a registered Democrat in the aftermath of George W. Bush’s disastrous wars. You can read more about his career here - should be free access — in the Washington Post. He spent his last years farming, a little way north of Davis.
When McCloskey was up for re-election in 1970, I was in graduate school at Stanford in statistics. I wandered into his local office to ask him about volunteering and found he had a cadre of young people who were doing door-to-door campaigning. I said gosh, you could make use of these folks to do some polling! (This was long before Jimmy Carter started a trend for politicians to hire their own pollsters.) Next thing I knew, I was organizing and leading his polling. On election night, I was in headquarters, watching as volunteers stationed at the precincts called in the totals (these were primitive times!) By pure beginner’s luck, my predictions were dead accurate. I guess I could have had a whole other career, but I went off to academia and medical research instead.
But I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Pete, an honest and courageous guy, and the only Republican I’ve ever supported for elective office. I hope some of you remember him as warmly as I do. He deserved it.