Little-Known Governor Calm Amid Crisis

He’s a lame-duck governor with low name recognition, even in his home state. He got the job only because his boss resigned, and he has promised not to run for reelection.

But when nine men were trapped 240 feet underground in western Pennsylvania, Gov. Mark Schweiker was at the Quecreek drift mine within 24 hours. For the next three days, he was a calm and steadfast presence--updating the news media, consoling families and maintaining a stubborn optimism when many people feared the miners were dead.

On Sunday morning, Schweiker’s boyish face was on television screens and front pages across America. He had announced the rescue of all nine men with his arms raised triumphantly, his sleeves rolled up and his dark hair matted with sweat.

“What people saw was a genuinely decent person--he’s like your friendly next-door neighbor,” said G. Terry Madonna, a political analyst and professor at Millersville University in eastern Pennsylvania who has known Schweiker since he was a county commissioner in suburban Philadelphia.

“He’s a rarity in politics--a man who doesn’t know how to be phony,” Madonna said. “He’s self-effacing, non-aggrandizing.”

Like former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Schweiker was thrust into the national spotlight at a time of crisis, although on a much smaller scale. And like Giuliani, he responded with a performance that left the public--and miners’ families--feeling informed and reassured but not exploited or patronized.

Schweiker, 49, has been governor less than 10 months, taking office Oct. 5 after Tom Ridge resigned to become director of homeland security. Schweiker’s term expires in January.

Although he spent six years as lieutenant governor, Schweiker has barely topped 50% on name recognition polls in Pennsylvania, Madonna said. As a Bucks County commissioner, Madonna said, Schweiker received the state Republican Party endorsement for lieutenant governor in 1994 as part of a political deal with a GOP leadership desperate for suburban Philadelphia votes.

Dressed in jeans and work boots at the Quecreek Mine 55 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, Schweiker took charge of briefing the media and the miners’ families--referring to himself later as “the lead dog.” When the families complained that they weren’t receiving timely information, Schweiker ordered state officials to brief them every hour, according to the governor’s spokesman, David La Torre.

Before Schweiker arrived Thursday night, the families had decided not to speak to the news media. The governor made sure the families’ wishes were followed, La Torre said.

Schweiker was careful not to report anything to the media until he had briefed family members. And when he was mistaken on a couple of details, La Torre said, the governor quickly corrected himself.

Even when the tapping of the trapped men was not heard after the first day and experts warned of hypothermia or suffocation, Schweiker was relentlessly optimistic. “If there’s any slogan for this, it’s ‘nine for nine,’ ” he said at one point late Saturday. “We’re bringing up nine miners.”

Asked during a CNN interview Sunday how he maintained his positive frame of mind, Schweiker replied: “I saw this growing assembly of the right equipment, the right insights and the right people to pull off the rescue.”

Between Thursday night and Sunday morning, Schweiker made regular rounds--talking to miners and experts at the rescue site, briefing reporters at an abandoned grocery store and sitting with the families at a nearby firehouse.

More than once, La Torre said, the governor gave his hotel key to an exhausted driller and told him to use his room for a shower and nap.

Schweiker’s only previous experience at a disaster site came Sept. 11 in Shanksville, 11 miles from Quecreek, after the crash of United Airlines Flight 93. He broke down in tears that day.

On Sunday, after the last miner was lifted to the surface, he said: “I thought these things only happened in movies.”

When his term ends in January, Schweiker will keep his promise to his wife and three children to leave politics, La Torre said. He previously ran a consulting firm.

“I think he handled this crisis so well because he wasn’t worried about politics or what his handlers were telling him,” Madonna said. “He’s clearly a guy who’s not worried about reelection.”