In 1991, after prolonged painful public agonizing and offering the U.S. Senate seat to people who declined it, Governor Robert P. Casey officially offered the Senate vacancy caused by the tragic plane crash that killed Senator John Heinz to his own Secretary of Labor and Industry Harris Wofford, formerly a top aide to President John F. Kennedy, Peace Corps Director R. Sargent Shriver, and a close friend of Martin Luther King, Jr.
In a press conference discussing his appointment, Wofford was asked if he minded not being Casey's first choice. "Not at all," Wofford said. "I wasn't my wife's first choice either." This quip killed the first choice issue, and Wofford went on to beat former Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh in a special election and then to lose, narrowly and tragically, to Congressman Rick Santorum in the 1994 general election.
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