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Running Uphill: Recollections of a Congressman from Arizona

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The late Morris K. Udall, Jim McNulty's friend from college, was once described as being "too funny to be president." Reading this book, I realized that McNulty was too decent to be a long-term congressman. He lasted only two years. Mo Udall, another decent man, lasted for 30, defeated only by Parkinson's, but he was an exception. McNulty, an Irishman from Boston, practiced law and made a heavily Mormon area of Arizona his political base for nearly half a century. "Running Uphill" is an interesting tale of his service in the Arizona Senate, his political work for both Morris and Stewart Udall (JFK's interior secretary) his near-defeat of Barry Goldwater for a U.S. Senate seat and his decision to join the Peace Corps at an age where most men sign up instead for golf or shuffle board. Through it all, you realize that this is an honest, honorable and considerate man whose reward for a good freshman term in the U.S. House of Representatives was a narrow loss to a challenger who ran a negative campaign. McNulty may have been too nice to stay in Congress, but Arizona and the nation are better for his having chosen to serve the public.