Local politicians grant that O'Neill may be an important asset for Harvard, in that she helps the University understand the needs of the community, but they do not acknowledge her influence helping the community understand Harvard. "The University's quiver isn't filled with arrows of community achievement, but Jackie has been careful to involve people--she has managed to have an impact on Harvard," says City Councilor Francis H. Duehay '55.
"My frustration in dealing with her is that she's not a decision-maker, just essentially a buffer for the real decison-makers, whoever they are," says City Councilor David Sullivan. "But she does do a good job of transmitting community sentiment," he adds.
Another O'Neill in Politics?
A year ago, rumor had it that O'Neill was planning to take a shot at her father-in-law Tip's seat in the House of Representatives. The National Women's Political Caucus, looking for a female candidate for the Eighth Congressional race, asked O'Neill to run. According to her husband, Thomas P. O'Neill III, former lieutenant governor, she did seriously consider taking up the offer. "She's the most electable O'Neill," he says. "She's throughly liberal with a sense of humor, and that stands out in a crowd."
Long-time Cambridge City Councilor Alfred E. Vellucci says if O'Neill had run, she would have won, "and they'd have had the first woman Congressman in this district." O'Neill's Italian heritage--her maiden name is DeMartino--would have appealed to the Eighth, one-third Italian, Vellucci says, but when he tried to convince her to run, "she just flashed a big, pretty smile."
O'Neill denies that she ever seriously considered running, explaining that "it required enormous personal sacrifice, and at this time of life, it's not something I want to do." She says that she is a "strong advocate of women running for political office," but refuses to comment about future ambitions for a political career.
Local politicians say that O'Neill quickly decided not to take part in the Eighth. "I asked her because I was thinking of running myself," says Duehay. "She said it was never a very serious possibility."
Her father-in-law, Thomas "Tip" O'Neill Jr., did his best to dissuade everyone in his family from a career politics because "it's too tough a life," her husband, Thomas P. O'Neill III, says. The former lieutenant governor gave up his own political career to become a successful real estate developer in Boston.
On top of moving and shaking for Harvard in Cambridge, Boston and across Massachusetts, O'Neill has a happy marriage, a seven-year-old daughter, Leigh, and a large extended family. "She has the greatest capacity for juggling that I've ever seen," her husband says. "I solicit her advice professionally, because she's smarter than I am," he says.
O'Neill, who comes from a long line of working women which dates back to her great-grandmother, says "the heroine role model of a working mother is hardly the professional woman with one child and a flexible job. The real heroine is a single parent working in a factory with four kids." O'Neill adds, "I have a supportive husband, a wonderful daughter, an extended family nearby. It's not a lot of angst."
And what's next on the agenda for O'Neill? On the home front, she plans to have another baby. On the career front, she says she plans to figure out a way for the University to help the city create affordable housing. It would seem that even if the tightrope gets longer or narrower, O'Neill doesn't need to worry about losing her balance.