Title

Karabian, Walter: Moscone's legislative charm

Abstract

Walter Karabian: Well he was right on the issues from my vantage point. He was a great salesman. If he wanted a bill passed in the Assembly, he would go to Jack Knox because Knox would doggedly work the floor and never give up. The same for Moscone. He would doggedly work the floor, and he did it with a charm and a grace. It was just impossible to not like him. Knox came to me once on a bill and said “I notice you haven’t voted for this.” I said “No, Jack it’s a horrible piece of garbage.” He said “Well of course it is. To hell with the bill, you vote for the author.” And because he was a charming guy and we all loved Jack Knox, I realized that that was going to get me along better than a lot of other things. Not a lot of young legislators – I got there when I was twenty-seven – understood that. Moscone didn’t have to explain that to you. You wanted to vote for whatever he put out there because you liked him so much.

Loading...

Media is loading
 

Type

Interview

Date Original

2010-08-27

Relation

The Moscone oral history interviews are part of the George Moscone Collection, MSS 328.

Contributing Institution

Holt-Atherton Special Collections and Archives, University of the Pacific Library

Rights Information

To view additional information on copyright and related rights of this item, such as to purchase copies of images and/or obtain permission to publish them, click here to view the Holt-Atherton Special Collections policies.

COinS