Bob Casey Sr.

Robert Patrick Casey Sr. (January 9, 1932 – May 30, 2000) was an American lawyer and politician from Pennsylvania who served as the 42nd governor of Pennsylvania from 1987 to 1995.

After attending Scranton Preparatory School, Casey turned down an offer to play for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1949, opting to go to college instead.

He went to the College of the Holy Cross, where he was president of his senior class, on a basketball scholarship.

He played on the same team as future NBA hall of famer Bob Cousy.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1953, and received his Juris Doctor from George Washington University in 1956.

Upon graduation and admission to the bar, Casey worked for the Washington, D.C., law firm Covington & Burling, where he remained until returning to Scranton in 1958 to enter solo practice.

He served as a member of the Pennsylvania Senate for the 22nd district from 1963 to 1968 and as Auditor General of Pennsylvania from 1969 to 1977.

Casey was best known for leading the anti-abortion wing of the Democratic Party, spearheading the opposition against Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a landmark Supreme Court decision on abortion.

He championed unions, believed in government as a beneficent force, and supported gun rights.

Casey served as a Democratic Party member of the Pennsylvania State Senate for the 22nd district from 1963 to 1968.

He first sought the office of Governor of Pennsylvania in 1966, losing the Democratic Party primary to Milton Shapp.

Casey was the candidate of the party establishment, but the independently wealthy Shapp ran a successful insurgent campaign for the nomination.

In 1968 and 1972 Casey was elected to the post of Auditor General of Pennsylvania.

Casey tried on two other occasions without success, in 1970 (again losing to Shapp) and again in 1978 (losing to Pete Flaherty).

Considered a moderate and despite growing frustration with Democratic Party policies, Casey rejected Republican offers to run for governor on their ticket on two occasions.

Restricted from seeking another term as Auditor General of Pennsylvania, Casey declined to seek the office of Pennsylvania Treasurer in 1976.

Instead, a Cambria County recorder of deeds named Robert E. Casey won the Democratic primary and the general election, spending virtually no money and doing virtually no campaigning; voters merely assumed they were voting for the outgoing Auditor General.

In 1978, another candidate named Robert P. Casey, this one a teacher and ice cream parlor owner from Monroeville, Pennsylvania, received the Democratic party's nomination for lieutenant governor, again with a no-spending, no-campaigning strategy.

This Casey, who joined Democratic gubernatorial nominee Pete Flaherty, narrowly lost to Richard Thornburgh and William Scranton III.

There was also a Robert J. Casey who sought a congressional seat in Western Pennsylvania and a Dennis Casey who ran for Pennsylvania State Senate.

Paul Beers in his 1980 book "Pennsylvania Politics Today and Yesterday: The Tolerable Accommodation", wrote that Casey was "regarded as the finest auditor general the Commonwealth ever had."

During his term as Auditor General, Casey was noted for feuding with then-Governor Shapp over Pennsylvania's pension system and exposing corruption.

Before Casey, the Auditor General's office had no public accountants, who hired 24 of them.

Beers notes that during his two terms, "Contracts for day care, Medicare, the Farm Show, highways, [Milton] Shapp's pet dream of a Pocono Arts Center, and property leases were all investigated and audited thoroughly by Casey, with accompanying headlines when he uncovered mistakes or petty corruptions."

In 1980 the Republicans launched an extensive advertising campaign to clarify that "Casey isn't Casey," and the Democratic state treasurer was defeated for re-election, losing to R. Budd Dwyer.

After a decade practicing law, Casey made a fourth bid for governor in 1986, billing himself as the "real Bob Casey" to distinguish himself and make light of the mistaken identity follies of the past.

Dubbed "the three-time loss from Holy Cross" by detractors, Casey hired two then generally unknown political strategists, James Carville and Paul Begala, to lead his campaign staff.

Unlike his three previous tries, Casey won the Democratic primary, defeating Philadelphia district attorney (and future Philadelphia Mayor and two term governor) Ed Rendell.

He then faced Thornburgh's lieutenant governor, Bill Scranton in the general election.

The race was considered too close to call until three weeks before the election, when a poster appeared statewide, depicting Scranton as a "dope smoking hippie".

Casey condemned this poster in the Pittsburgh Press on October 18, 1986.

On the Saturday before election day, however, Carville launched the now infamous "guru ad", a TV advert which attacked Scranton's practice of transcendental meditation.

Casey defeated Scranton by a margin of 79,000 votes.

Inaugurated on January 20, 1987, Casey was immediately confronted with several serious issues.

Budd Dwyer, the state treasurer who had been convicted on charges of accepting kickbacks, committed suicide at a televised press conference just two days into his term.

Casey brought what he called an "activist government" to Pennsylvania, expanding health care services for women, introducing reforms to the state's welfare system, and introducing an insurance program for uninsured children (which became a model for the successful SCHIP program later adopted nationwide).

His son, Bob Casey Jr.., also served as Auditor General of Pennsylvania and went on to serve as Pennsylvania Treasurer and as U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, a position he holds since 2007.

Casey was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, the son of Alphonsus Liguori and Marie (née Cummings) Casey.

His family, of Irish descent, was originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania, but his parents moved to New York in order for his father, a devoutly Roman Catholic former coal miner who began working as a coal miner at age 10, to attend Fordham University School of Law.

The family returned to Scranton following Casey's birth.