Who knew?

… "Bless Their Honest Irish Hearts" by Charles C. Johnson - City Journal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

As a young politician in Northampton, Massachusetts, Coolidge saw the hope that the American dream stirred in the “stout hearts” of Irish immigrants. Jim Lucey, a cobbler from County Kerry who befriended Coolidge when he was a student at Amherst College, helped him get out the vote of “Coolidge Irish Democrats,” who never voted Republican but made an exception for Silent Cal. After his razor-thin victory in the 1910 race for mayor in Northampton, Coolidge wrote to his father that at least 400 Democrats had voted for him and provided his margin of victory. Coolidge wrote, “They knew that I had done things for them, bless their honest Irish hearts.”