Ron Sarasin's first election to Congress was inarguably one of the major upsets anywhere in 1972.
The obscure state Connecticut legislator and town attorney of Beacon Falls (population: 6,000) was always considered an underdog against Democratic Rep. John Monagan, a seven-term incumbent and onetime mayor of Waterbury (the largest city in the Nutmeg State's 5th District).
But Sarasin outworked the overconfident Monagan. Hitting the small towns and hamlets in Connecticut's Valley area, Sarasin drove home the fact that the incumbent and his family lived in Washington D.C., and, if Sarasin was elected, he would be home every weekend.
It worked. Sarasin edged out Monagan with 51%. When Sarasin died March 27 at age 88, his rise from obscurity to pulling off a major upset was widely recalled.
"'Ronnie Who From Beacon Where?' was the headline in one of the papers after I won," he loved to recall.
Sarasin came to Congress with 30-plus other Republican freshmen, all bright-eyed and enthusiastic after the landslide reelection of Republican President Richard Nixon.
That enthusiasm turned to morbidity as the Watergate scandal metastasized. Sarasin became a top target for extinction by state and national Democrats as powerful state House Speaker William Ratchford decided to take on the freshman Republican.
But with the rise of Vice President Gerald Ford to the White House, things seemed to turn around.
As Sarasin's fellow freshman Republican and senator-to-be Steve Symms (Idaho) recalled to Newsmax, "Ron and I and others in the class of '72 were very positive about '74. Under Jerry Ford, we were rolling wonderfully toward November. But then, a few weeks before the election, Jerry pardoned Nixon from any crimes he may have committed and then sent us into a downward spiral. I personally agreed with the pardon, but, darn it, why couldn't he have waited until after the election?"
Symms was right. Democrats made a net gain of 49 seats, their largest pick-up in the House since 1958.
But Sarasin had campaigned hard and reminded constituents he was home every weekend without fail to hear of their problems and opinions. It was close — 4,331 votes out of more than 177,000 cast — but Sarasin eked out reelection over the better-funded Ratchford.
Sarasin was one of a group of moderate-to-conservative Republicans from the Northeast who still packed a punch as their party was veering to the right. Another House classmate of Sarasin's, Bill Cohen of Maine (later U.S. senator and secretary of defense), told us: "As fellow New Englanders, Ron and I worked closely on a number of initiatives. He was a public servant of intelligence, integrity and independence."
That appeared to be marketable in Connecticut. Sarasin won a third term in 1976 by carrying nearly every town in the 5th District.
With polls showing voters upset at Democratic Gov. Ella Grasso for raising taxes, she was unsuccessfully challenged for renomination by her own Democratic lieutenant governor, who she once greeted at an event by saying: "Hello, you son of a b****."
Sarasin seemed to be better-than-even money to win the governorship and thus abandoned certain reelection to run statewide.
It proved a mistake. Grasso, the first woman elected governor anywhere without following her husband, rebounded from her low poll numbers by blitzing the state in a helicopter after one of Connecticut's biggest snowstorms. "Mother Ella" is what people stamped out on their snow-covered yards as she flew over them.
Once written off as a political goner, Grasso won with nearly 59% of the vote.
Saddled with a big debt from a campaign even close friends said was poorly managed, Sarasin blamed no one but himself. He went to work as lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association and later as president of the National Beer Wholesalers Association.
With trips back to Connecticut to try to raise money after his political career had ended, Sarasin finally paid off his campaign debt.
He lived up to Ronald Reagan's axiom that "there are second acts in life." After decades in public life and lobbying, Sarasin in 2000 became president of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society. A highly visible figure, he unveiled a traveling exhibit on the role of slaves building the Capitol and brought a civics education program to school that proved successful.
Once out of high school in 1952, young Sarasin joined the Navy and became petty officer second class. After his discharge, he earned undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Connecticut and quickly became town attorney of Beacon Falls.
In an era of growing rancor in politics, the reminiscence of Sarasin by his House classmate and onetime House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster, R-Pa., ring out: "Ron was a wonderful man, and the fact that I was more conservative than he was made no difference in our friendship — none at all."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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