The Senator's beloved grandmother passed today, just one day shy of seeing her grandson, whom she raised, elected president.
UPDATE: Sen. Obama commented on his grandmother's passing:
No matter what happens tomorrow, I'm going to feel good about how it has turned out because all of you have created this remarkable campaign. She is gone home. And she died peacefully in her sleep, with my sister at her side. And so, there is great joy as well as tears. I'm not going to talk about it too long because it is hard, a little, to talk about.
I want everybody to know though a little bit about her. Her name was Madelyn Dunham. And she was born in Kansas in a small town in 1922. Which means she lived through the Great Depression, she lived through two world wars, she watched her husband go off to war, while she looked after her baby and worked on a bomber assembly line. When her husband came back they benefited from the GI bill, they moved west and eventually ended up in Hawaii. She was somebody who was a very humble person, a very plainspoken person. She is one of those quiet heroes we have all across America, who are not famous, their names are not in the newspapers, but each and every day they work hard. They look after their families. They sacrifice for their children, and their grandchildren. They aren't seeking the limelight. All they try to do is do the right thing. And in this crowd, there are a lot of quiet heroes like that, people like that, mothers and fathers and grandparents who have worked hard and sacrificed all their lives and the satisfaction that they get is in seeing their children or maybe their grandchildren or their great-grandchildren live a better life than they did. That is what America is about. That is what we are fighting for.
And while she won't live to see her grandson become president, she did live long enough to vote for him. And it will count.
'Senator No' heads for the big cotton wagon in the sky
Helms celebrates victry in 1972. From a March 9 story in the Washington Post
Former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms is dead at age 86. Says the WaPo:
He supported prayer in the public schools, free enterprise in business, a strong military, a balanced budget and "decency, honor and spiritual and moral cleanliness in America." In 1989, he drew national attention for an attack on the National Endowment for the Arts after it funded works he considered homoerotic and anti-Christian.
To his opponents, Helms was divisive, mean-spirited, race-baiting and manipulative. He was a pioneer of negative television attack ads, which he used frequently and effectively in his political campaigns.
When Helms announced in 2001 that he was retiring from the Senate, Washington Post columnist David S. Broder described him as "the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country."
Helms's opposition to social change and what he considered legislative overstepping led to his nickname of "Senator No," a title he wore he came to relish. In 1977, he angrily denounced a treaty advanced by President Jimmy Carter to turn over the Panama Canal to the country of Panama. He blocked nominations for federal office, withheld funding for the United Nations, opposed gun control and threatened to cancel federal support for arts groups and school busing. A staunch opponent of Communism, he sought to isolate Cuban leader Fidel Castro and refused to relent on strict U.S. trade embargoes of Cuba.
And the Raleigh News & Observer serves up some memorable Helms quotes, courtesy of the Associated Press. Take this one, for instance:
"Well, there is no joy in Mudville tonight. The mighty ultraliberal establishment, and the liberal politicians and editors and commentators and columnists, have struck out again." — Helms after defeating black Democrat Harvey Gantt for Senate in 1990.
Lovely. Here's one to bring a tear to your eye on this Independence Day:
"I shall always remember the shady streets, the quiet Sundays, the cotton wagons, the Fourth of July parades, the New Year's Eve firecrackers. I shall never forget the stream of school kids marching uptown to place flowers on the Courthouse Square monument on Confederate Memorial Day." — Helms writing in 1956 on life in his hometown of Monroe, N.C.
Gotta love those cotton wagons ... Oh, and who can forget this classic:
"To rob the Negro of his reputation of thinking through a problem in his own fashion is about the same as trying to pretend that he doesn't have a natural instinct for rhythm and for singing and dancing." — Helms responding in 1956 to criticism that a fictional black character in his newspaper column was offensive.
Russert was recording voiceovers for Sunday’s “Meet the Press” program when he collapsed, the network said. He and his family had recently returned from Italy, where they celebrated the graduation of Russert’s son, Luke, from Boston College.
No further details were immediately available.
Jeez. He was only 58... For you locals, that's the same thing that happened to Bubba at AM940, and he was even younger...
BTW who knew Russert was a lawyer? This one's shocking as hell...
We are heartbroken at the sudden passing of Tim Russert. We have lost a beloved member of our NBC Universal family and the news world has lost one of its finest. The enormity of this loss cannot be overstated. More than a journalist, Tim was a remarkable family man. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Maureen, their son, Luke, and Tim's entire extended family.
The news spread quickly once it broke. The competing networks are all paying homage.
Not that it means a damned thing to his family, but am I the only one thinking, biggest election ever ... no Russert on the TV. Boy, does God have a wicked sense of humor...?
UPDATE 2: The shock is reverberating around the news business tonight. MSNBC has had on Howard Fineman, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Peggy Noonan, a puffy-eyed Chuck Todd, a crying Jack Welch, David Gregory, Pat Buchanan, Eugene Robinson, Al Hunt, John Meacham, Andrea Mitchell, who choked up briefly when saying that Russert was one of only two people to call her "Mitch" (the other being her father,) and Chris Matthews, who called in from his vacation in Paris. Every cable news channel is doubling down on coverage, and the shell shock is evident on all the faces. Keith Olbermann seemed like he was ready to break down. Even Barbara Walters called in. Mitchell is at the helm on MSNBC now. The parade of journos will likely continue throughout the night.
The WaPo's The Fix blog says what everyone is thinking: nothing in political coverage will be the same. (Election night with no clipboard? Unbelievable...)
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
