[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 80 (Wednesday, June 9, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S6670]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      A TRIBUTE TO BETTY STRONG, THE GRANDE-DAME OF IOWA POLITICS

 Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, in the early 1950s, at a time when 
political backrooms were still smoke-filled and the sound of a woman's 
voice was still a cause for heads to turn, Betty Strong involved 
herself in politics in her home State of Iowa and did not hesitate to 
speak her mind. She turned many heads and made folks in Iowa listen in 
those days and folks have been listening to what she has had to say 
ever since.
  A strong and rare woman, she had a deep and abiding commitment to the 
rough-and-tumble of the political process and will long stand as an 
inspiration to all of us, to every American who believes in the great 
idea of representative democracy, to all those whose values and dreams 
are represented by a political party and by the process through which 
we elect our representatives.
  She held firm her deep beliefs. She was, first and foremost, a 
Democrat. In fact, Betty Strong was the grande-dame of Democrats in 
Iowa. She was an organizer who knew how to bring people together for a 
cause, a woman who understood the issues, knew the process better than 
almost anyone, and felt with every fiber of her being that she had not 
only the right but the duty as a citizen to fight for what she believed 
was right and fair and just. She fought on behalf of organized Labor 
and through the Central Labor Council for the basic dignity of the 
American worker, and for a host of causes in her community, and did not 
hesitate to make her opinion known, did not waver when it came to 
bringing about the changes necessary to elect those who agreed with 
her. But partisanship was not what we should remember when we remember 
Betty Strong today.
  To watch her in action was to understand what America is all about. 
To see her build a coalition, to rally support, to bring out the best 
in her community to rise to an issue, to support a candidate, to lay 
out a platform, to build consensus, was truly a lesson in the best of 
the American political dynamic. And, every four years without fail, she 
was in the vanguard of the unique process we have come to understand as 
the Iowa Caucuses.
  I first met her in 1987 when I entered the Iowa Caucuses, and I can 
say without hesitation or equivocation: I will never forget Betty 
Strong. She was with me then and her memory will remain with me always. 
I wrote her a letter in 1988 thanking her for her help and for her 
lifelong service, and I am honored to know that the letter hung on her 
living room wall all these years. I will long be beholden to Betty for 
her commitment, for her support, for her help, for the extraordinary 
grace she showed me and the dignity with which she lived her life and 
fought for the causes to which she was so committed.
  Iowa has lost a great woman and I would ask my colleagues to join me 
in recognizing the lasting contribution that Betty Strong made to that 
fundamental Tip O'Neill-notion that all politics is local. Today we 
mourn her loss and offer to her family and all of her friends in Iowa 
and across America, the thanks of a grateful Nation.

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