‘God has delivered a miracle, and you are here today,’ Hoyer is told in Chicago

Just days after suffering a ministroke, U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-5th) chats with admirers at the Maryland delegation breakfast Tuesday at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Photo by Josh Kurtz.

CHICAGO — Nine days removed from suffering a ministroke while vacationing on Cape Cod, U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-5th) was back in his element Tuesday, speaking to the Maryland delegation to the Democratic National Convention.

If ever a mass political gathering could cure what ails you, Hoyer, the longest-serving member of Congress in Maryland history, is the model patient.

Naturally, Hoyer, who is 85, used his own recent health scare to fashion a political message.

“That stroke struck me for about six hours,” Hoyer told his fellow Democrats, saying the anti-clotting drug he was given worked almost immediately. He praised the treatment he received at Cape Cod Hospital and later at the Boston Medical Center — and even hailed the federally funded highway infrastructure that enabled him to be transported by ambulance quickly and smoothly to the hospital in Boston.

“I’m the beneficiary of wonderful, wonderful health care,” Hoyer said. “And we Democrats have worked to make sure that that health care is available to almost everybody, and we have to make sure, through this election, that that health care is accessible for everybody.”

Hoyer was repeatedly cheered lustily by his fellow Maryland Democrats, who were simultaneously incredulous but completely unsurprised that he would be present in Chicago so soon after his stroke.

“God has delivered a miracle, and you are here today,” his colleague, U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-7th), told him.

“I am pleased to be here — literally and figuratively, I suppose,” Hoyer replied.

He noted that Republicans continue to try to gut the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, referring to the GOP as “the Yo-Yo party” — “you’re on your own.”

In a hotel ballroom where at least half the Maryland delegates and guests were attending their first national convention, Hoyer, as he often does, traced his own start in politics to hearing John F. Kennedy speak on the University of Maryland campus in 1959, when Kennedy was preparing to run for president. Before even consuming his words, Hoyer said he was struck by Kennedy’s look — and his mode of transportation.

“He was riding in a 1958 Pontiac convertible,” Hoyer recalled. “I was 19. I thought it was cool.”

Hoyer won his first election, for a seat in the Maryland Senate, in 1966, and became Senate president in 1975, at the age of 35. But four years later, he was temporarily out of politics after losing a bid for lieutenant governor.

His political comeback came in 1981, when he won his congressional seat in a special election. He’s now the senior Democrat in the House of Representatives and until recently served for many years as the No. 2 in House Democratic leadership.

At home, Hoyer has used his oratorical skills to fire up partisan crowds and build support for the national ticket, praise colleagues, encourage the next generations of Democrats, and take care of the institutions in his Prince George’s County and Southern Maryland district, including his alma mater, the University of Maryland.

Half-jokingly, as he heaped praise on U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-4th), who also represents Prince George’s County, he lamented losing the university from his district in the latest round of redistricting, suggesting that the legislature’s presiding officers were fine with that circumstance because it created a less unwieldy congressional map.

“[Senate President] Bill Ferguson loves it, [House Speaker] Adrienne Jones loves it, but I lost College Park,” he said. “Not that I’m thinking about it.”

Mainly, Hoyer made a full-throated case for supporting Vice President Kamala Harris for president and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) for U.S. Senate. President Joe Biden won the popular vote in 2020 by 7 million votes, and he exhorted the crowd, “Let’s top 14 million” this year.

“Kamala says, if we show up, we win,” Hoyer added.

This is Hoyer’s 14th Democratic convention, dating back to 1964. He missed the 1972 convention, he said in an interview, because “we were for Humphrey, and McGovern’s people handed us a hat.” And he missed the 1980 convention while he was temporarily out of office.

Being back in Chicago for a national convention for the third time, Hoyer said he detected a surge of optimism, especially compared to his first convention experience here, in 1968, when anti-war protesters and the police clashed in the streets.

“In 1968, we were a party deeply divided, we were a country deeply divided,” he said. “We were a party mad at each other, and we lost.”

Hoyer praised Biden for stepping aside as the presidential nominee, which has helped unify the Democrats.

“Joe Biden made a decision for America,” he said. “He made a decision that was tough. It was tough for him personally. But it was not tough for him as a patriot.”

Although he is older than Biden, Hoyer himself shows few signs of slowing down politically, though his recent illness probably prompted a few ambitious Democrats to check the succession process for congressional nominees in Maryland. And his decision to step away, whenever it comes, is sure to set off a political scramble with myriad down-ballot implications.

But Hoyer isn’t ready to have that conversation just yet.

“Mark Twain said, ‘The report of my death is greatly exaggerated,'” he told the delegates, who cheered him yet again.