Tonight political junkies will be closely monitoring the Sestak-Specter race in PA’s Democratic primary, by all accounts a close one, made more interesting by the rise of Sestak, a favorite of many progressive Dems. The added complexity of Specter’s party-switching, along with rain in Philly, however, make it problematic to divine a broad trend with November implications. Instead, pundits are calling the PA-12 congressional race the more interesting bellwether, pitting Democrat Mark Critz and Republican Tim Burns in a close contest for the late John Murtha’s congressional seat.
PA-12 is a predominantly white working class district with a Cook Partisan Voting Index score of R +1, the only congressional district in the nation that voted for Dem presidential candidate John Kerry in ’04 and GOP nominee John McCain in ’08. It’s being called a must-win for the Republicans, but Democrat Critz is running a good campaign — a Talking Points Memo Poll Average has Burns at 43.0 percent compared with 42.4 percent for Critz.
As Christina Bellantoni reports at TPM,

If Democrats keep that seat in a battleground district, they think that bodes well for this fall…”If the bottom were really falling out the GOP should be walking away with this race,” a Democrat close to the White House told me. Given the district demographics, the tough year for the majority party and the president’s diminished approval ratings, Republicans have a great chance at a pickup, the source said. “Even if it’s close it’s a good sign for us.”

Bellantoni also quotes former Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), “They should win this election today…If the Republicans don’t win this I think they have to look mechanically at what they’re doing.”
Critz is getting lots of love from Democratic leaders, including Bill Clinton, who campaigned for Critz. The DCCC reports that Critz is being outspent by Burns more than 2-1, but the Democrat is still hanging tough. If Critz wins, or even loses by a close margin, it will be a good sign that, contrary to GOP spin, the white working class of 2010 is not jerking its knees for Republicans just yet.

You already knew it, but WaPo columnist Michael Gerson puts it exceptionally-well in his op-ed today. As W’s former speechwriter and a GOP political operative, his concerns about the Latino vote are of interest. Here’s Gerson on why the GOP’s latest round of immigrant-bashing looks a lot like “political suicide”:

…it would be absurd to deny that the Republican ideological coalition includes elements that are anti-immigrant — those who believe that Hispanics, particularly Mexicans, are a threat to American culture and identity. When Arizona Republican Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth calls for a moratorium on legal immigration from Mexico, when then-Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) refers to Miami as a “Third World country,” when state Rep. Russell Pearce (R), one of the authors of the Arizona immigration law, says Mexicans’ and Central Americans’ “way of doing business” is different, Latinos can reasonably assume that they are unwelcome in certain Republican circles.
…Never mind that the level of illegal immigration is down in Arizona or that skyrocketing crime rates along the border are a myth. McCain’s tag line — “Complete the danged fence” — will rank as one of the most humiliating capitulations in modern political history.
Ethnic politics is symbolic and personal. Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy gained African American support by calling Coretta Scott King while her husband was in prison. Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater lost support by voting against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A generation of African American voters never forgot either gesture.

Coming after the debate over GOP-sponsored Proposition 187 in California and the disastrous (for Republicans) immigration debate during the last mid term elections, the new Arizona immigration law may well be strike three for the GOP regarding Hispanic voters in particular. (It will probably hurt some with all voters of color). Gerson cites a 2008 poll by the Pew Hispanic Center, which indicated that 49 percent of Hispanics believed “Democrats had more concern for people of their background,” while only 7 percent believed it true of Republicans. Says Gerson, “Since the Arizona controversy, this gap can only have grown. In a matter of months, Hispanic voters in Arizona have gone from being among the most pro-GOP in the nation to being among the most hostile.”
Gerson trots out some interesting demographic data to underscore his point:

…Hispanics make up 40 percent of the K-12 students in Arizona, 44 percent in Texas, 47 percent in California, 54 percent in New Mexico. Whatever temporary gains Republicans might make feeding resentment of this demographic shift, the party identified with that resentment will eventually be voted into singularity. In a matter of decades, the Republican Party could cease to be a national party.

Gerson tries to conclude on a hopeful note for his GOP brethren, pointing out that Hispanics tend to be “socially-conservative” and “entrepreneurial,” adding that “…Republicans do not need to win a majority of the Latino vote to compete nationally, just a competitive minority of that vote.” But cold logic forces his final sentence: “But even this modest goal is impossible if Hispanic voters feel targeted rather than courted.”
The rapidly-tanking GOP brand in Latino communities is one of the reasons why Republican leaders are so excited by Hispanic candidates like Marco Rubio in Florida — they think it helps project an image that they are Hispanic-friendly, despite their miserable track record on issues of Latino concern. Sort of a ‘Potemkin village” with large smiling portraits in the front and very little behind it.
Dems have been given a gift by the xenophobic wing of the GOP. That doesn’t, insure, however, that Latino voters will always turn out for Dems. But it does strongly suggest that Dems have much to gain by supporting accelerated naturalization of Hispanics applying for citizenship, investing in Hispanic registration and GOTV and especially by recruiting and training more Latino candidates.

it will come as no great surprise that the NRA, and some of their Republican errand boys are now defending the rights of terrorists to buy guns and even explosives. Even in the wake of the attempted Times Square bombing, we have conservative Republicans like Senator Lindsay Graham prattling on about how the lofty principles they ascribe to the second amendment are somehow more compelling than the safety and security of Americans on our own soil.
To be fair, not all Republicans have shrugged off concerns about terrorists legally purchasing weapons. Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) has testified in favor of legislation he is co-sponsoring with Sen Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) to close the “terror gap.” There are a few Republican mayors spinkled among the 500+ mayors supporting the restrictions. Heck, even the Bush administration supported restrictions, which were blocked by NRA lobbying and their (mostly) Republican supporters in congress.
The NRA’s defense of terrorist gun rights is underscored, as you might guess, by the usual “slippery slope” argument. You know, the one about how the mere mention of gun control will lead us inexorably toward a dictatorial confiscation of all firearms to pave the way for our incoming communist masters. It seems crazy to imply that this paranoia should trump legitimate concerns about suspected terrorists buying arms and explosives willy-nilly.
A recent Government Accountability Office report revealed that persons listed on the terrorist watch list have purchased firearms and explosives from licensed U.S. dealers on more than a thousand occasions over the past six years, and quite legally. As William Branigan reported in the Washington Post,

According to the GAO report released Wednesday, FBI data show that individuals on the government’s terrorist watch list were involved in firearms or explosives background checks 1,228 times from February 2004 through February 2010. Of those transactions, 1,119, or about 91 percent, “were allowed to proceed because no prohibiting information was found — such as felony convictions, illegal immigrant status, or other disqualifying factors,” the GAO’s Eileen R. Larence said in prepared testimony.
She said the 1,228 transactions involved about 650 individuals, of whom about 450 engaged in multiple transactions and six were involved in 10 or more.
From March 2009 through February 2010, Larence said, 272 background checks yielded matches to persons on the terrorist watch list, one of whom was purchasing explosives. Several others were listed not only in the FBI’s Known or Suspected Terrorist File but were also on the Transportation Security Administration’s no-fly list, she said…”According to FBI officials, all of these transactions were allowed to proceed because the background checks revealed no prohibiting information under current law,” Larence testified.

Do the Dems have an opening here? I think so. An Ipsos/McClatchy Poll conducted 1/ 7-11 found that 51 percent of respondents agreed generally that it’s “necessary to give up some liberties in order to make the country safe from terrorism.” A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll conducted 6/4-5, 2008, found 88 percent supporting reforms “Preventing certain people, such as convicted felons or people with mental health problems, from owning guns.” I would thus be very surprised if a strong majority of Americans would not support some reasonable weapons purchasing restrictions on suspected terrorists.
UPDATE: A poll by The Word Doctors (Republican strategist Frank Luntz’s outfit), conducted 11/25-12/2 on behalf of Mayors Against Illegal Guns found that a stunning 82 percent of NRA members supported “a proposal prohibiting people on the terrorist watch list from purchasing guns,” with only 9 percent of NRA members opposing the proposal. Clearly, the NRA leadership is very much at odds with its rank and file membership on this issue. (Thanks to Ladd Everitt of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence for flagging the poll)
Polls do show that the GOP has a small edge in public confidence regarding which party can fight terrorism most effectively. Democratic solidarity for reasonable restrictions on suspected terrorists could help level public opinion on national security concerns respecting the two parties — and just might prevent a great tragedy.

Anyone interested in the politics of HCR should check out Alan I. Abramowitz’s “Health Care as an Issue in the Midterm Election” at Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Abamowitz, a TDS Advisory Board member, provides an updated analysis of whether HCR “has the potential to influence enough voters to affect the results of the House and Senate elections.”
Noting that “that the most important influence on voter decision-making in congressional elections is party identification,” Abramowitz argues that “the influence of an issue depends on the proportion of partisans on each side who disagree with their own party’s position. The potential of an issue to influence the outcome of an election is greatest when the proportion of cross-pressured partisans is much larger in one party than in the other party.”
Using this framework, Abramowitz taps recent Gallup poll data, obtained 3/26-28, in which respondents expressed preferences for generic Democrats or Republicans for House seats, along with their opinions about the HCR Act. Abramowiz found:

The first thing that stands out when one examines the results of this poll is the powerful influence of party identification on vote choice. Among all registered voters, 48% favored a generic Republican, 46% favored a generic Democrat, and 6% were undecided. However…well over 90% of party identifiers and leaning independents supported their own party’s candidate. There was almost no difference in this regard between identifiers and leaners…92% of Republican identifiers and 97% of Republican leaners favored a generic Republican while 95% of Democratic identifiers and 90% of Democratic leaners favored a generic Democrat.
When registered voters were asked about the effect of the health care law on their congressional vote, they divided fairly evenly: 40% said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supported the law, 46% said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who opposed the law, and 13% said it would have no effect on their vote.
…These opinions were generally consistent with voting intentions. 75% of Democratic voters said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who favored the law while only 8% said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who opposed the law; 84% of Republican voters said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who opposed the law while only 9% said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who favored the law. Among undecided voters, 28% said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who favored the law, 34% said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who opposed the law, and 38% said it would have no effect on their vote.

Abramowitz concludes,

…Only a small minority of voters are cross-pressured on the issue of health care reform and…the numbers of cross-pressured Democrats and Republicans are about equal. Moreover, among undecided voters, there is a fairly even split between those saying they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports the law and those saying they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who opposes the law. Based on these results, there appears to be little potential for this issue to produce a shift in voter preferences. The main effect of health care as an issue would probably be to reinforce voters’ partisan preferences.

Regarding the voter enthusiasm factor, however, Abramowitz cautions that,

…So far this year most polls have found Republicans to be more enthusiastic about voting than Democrats and that was also the case in the Gallup survey. 71% of those supporting a generic Republican indicated that they were more enthusiastic than usual about voting this year compared with only 56% of those supporting a generic Democrat.

Certainly the ‘enthusiasm gap’ favoring Republicans is cause for some concern. But the flip side, says Abramowitz, is that “there appears to be more room for increased enthusiasm among pro-reform Democrats than among anti-reform Republicans.” Thus Dems stand to benefit from an effort to energize HCR supporters, as well as an educational campaign to increase their number.
All of which also suggests that the economy, particularly jobs, may well trump health care as the pivotal concern for midterm voters.

Donald Carr, a senior policy and communications advisor for the Environmental Working Group, has a post up at HuffPo that should cause considerable squirming among Republican critics of big government, a substantial number of whom have been funneling millions of taxpayer dollars into subsidies to agribusiness. Carr explains in “Will Farm Subsidies Be the Tea Partiers’ Achilles’ Heel?“:

A wide swath of leading conservative and libertarian organizations, pundits and thinkers are no fans of the farm subsidy system: The Wall Street Journal editorial page, National Review, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, just for starters. Even Glenn Beck called for severely limiting farm subsidies just weeks ago on his Fox News program.
When conservative thought leaders decry the billions of federal dollars that ensure profits for the largest growers of corn, cotton, rice, wheat and soybeans as a glaring example of wasteful government spending — you might think politicians who call themselves conservative would hear the music.

If you think this means government-bashing Republican office-holders would be railing against the Big Ag give-aways, you would be wrong, very wrong. As Carr notes,

But right now, there seem to be plenty of Tea Party-favored candidates who willingly collect government assistance in the form of farm subsidies. In early April, the Washington Post reported that Stephen Fincher, a Tea Party Senate candidate from Tennessee, was facing criticism over his acceptance of farm subsidy payments, as is Indiana Senate candidate Marlin Stutzman. Michele Bachmann’s farm subsidies have opened her up to charges of hypocrisy for her limited government stands.
The situation is similar with members who flaunt their success at steering government money to their home states and districts. In March, at the height of the heath care debate, nine Republican senators sent President Obama a letter decrying his proposed cuts to lavish farm subsidy programs. The senators who signed the letter were Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, Pat Roberts (Kan.), Thad Cochran (Miss.), John Thune (S.D.), James Risch (Idaho), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas) and David Vitter (La).

Of course the GOP politicians will be quick to describe the multi-billion dollar give-aways as much-needed help for family farmers, which is a shameless lie.

You call this a “safety net?” The data show that the vast majority of the subsidies defended by the nine senators go to the largest and wealthiest plantation-scale farm operations in the country. In 2009, the top 10 percent of the largest farm recipients in America collected 74 percent of all farm subsidies. At the same time, according to the USDA, 62 percent of farmers — nearly two thirds — received no payments whatsoever.
Keep in mind that the farm economy has been white hot compared to other economic sectors. USDA projects that farm income will rise by 12 percent in the next year, following a decade that produced the five highest years ever for farm income. But agriculture’s bipartisan appetite for taxpayer money is insatiable. …

Carr points out that some Democrats have joined in supporting the subsidies. But it’s not Democrats who are doing all of the self-righteous bellowing about the evils of unmerited government spending while doling out billions in corporate welfare to Big Agriculture, which returns the favor in campaign contributions. Carr has opened up a big can of GOP hypocrisy here, and Democratic candidates should not hesitate to make the most of it in their midterm campaigns.

Open Left‘s Chris Bowers comments on the limp Democratic turnout in yesterday’s primaries and urges the DNC to commission some polling to find out what’s behind it. Bowers notes, via Hotline on Call a disturbing decline in Democratic voters, compared to figures for the ’06 mid-term elections:

Just 663K OH voters cast ballots in the competitive primary between LG Lee Fisher (D) and Sec/State Jennifer Brunner (D). That number is lower than the 872K voters who turned out in ’06, when neither Gov. Ted Strickland (D) nor Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) faced primary opponents.
…in IN, just 204K Hoosiers voted for Dem House candidates, far fewer than the 357K who turned out in ’02 and the 304K who turned out in ’06.

Worse, the GOP turnout numbers were up dramatically, according to Hotline:

By contrast, GOP turnout was up almost across the board. 373K people voted in Burr’s uncompetitive primary, nearly 9% higher than the 343K who voted in the equally non-competitive primary in ’04. Turnout in House races in IN rose 14.6% from ’06, fueled by the competitive Senate primary, which attracted 550K voters. And 728K voters cast ballots for a GOP Sec/State nominee in Ohio, the highest-ranking statewide election with a primary; in ’06, just 444K voters cast ballots in that race.

Bowers notes that “This is more than just a demographic problem based on age–there really is a meaningful enthusiasm gap,” and urges the DNC to make a smart investment with some of the $30 mill it has pledged for mid-term GOTV this year:

…There are still no public, national polls looking for answers on why Democratic turnout is so low. All it would take would be to ask a single, open-ended question to 500 people who voted in 2008, but self-identify as unlikely to vote in 2010, “why don’t you intend on voting?” Everyone has theories, but those theories lack empirical supporting evidence…
…Surely, they could spend a little of that money on a transparent, representative, scientifically random, poll of unlikely voters of the sort I listed above. A lot of people are going to be working to try and improve turnout this year, and our jobs would be a lot easier if we actually knew what was motivating unlikely voters.

It’s a good idea. The DNC should take nothing for granted in budgeting midterm GOTV expenditures, and certainly not rely on unverified speculation about the specific reasons for the Dems’ mid-term voter enthusiasm decline.

WaPo columnist Chris Cillizza’s “Democrats’ young voter problem” in today’s edition of The Fix addresses a challenge facing Democrats regarding an important constituency. Drawing from a Gallup tracking poll, conducted 4/1-25, Cillizza explains:

Less than one in four voters aged 18-29 described themselves as “very enthusiastic” about the 2010 midterm election. Those numbers compare unfavorably to voters between 50 and 64 (44 percent “very enthusiastic”), 65 and older (41 percent “very enthusiastic”) and 30 to 49 (32 percent “very enthusiastic”).

Cillizza argues plausibly enough that this youth “enthusiasm” gap, especially in context of current events, makes it very difficult to recreate the pro-Democratic coalition that elected Obama for the mid-term elections. The concern is that low enthusiasm will translate into low turnout, which is especially worrisome because young voters are tilting Democratic, as the Gallup data indicates:

The Gallup data affirms the clear Democratic tilt of young voters. On a generic congressional ballot test, 51 percent of 18-29 year old vote opted for the Democratic candidate while 39 percent chose the Republican. In every other age group, the generic was either statistically tied or the GOP candidate led. (Republicans’ best age group was voters 65 and older who chose a GOP candidate by a 50 percent to 41 percent margin over a generic Democrat.)

Of course, Democrats would like a strong youth turnout in November. But how important is the youth turnout, compared to other age groups? Here’s an age breakdown of the last (2006) mid-term turnout, according to CNN exit polling:

18-29 12%
30-44 24%
45-59 34%
60+ 29%

Assuming age demographics in 2010 are not terribly different from ’06, it appears that the youth vote will be a relatively small segment, compared to older age groups. Perhaps youth turnout can be increased slightly with a targeted GOTV campaign. But it seems prudent to ask if putting more resources into targeting the 45-59 cohort — almost triple the percentage of young voters in ’06 — might be more cost-effective.
Of course it’s not so easy to craft appeals to arbitrary age groups. But one experience being shared by many in the 45-59 cohort is financing their kids’ college education, as tuition costs continue to rise dramatically. A brand new, well-publicized Democratic plan to provide tuition assistance through beefed up scholarships and tuition tax breaks might do very well with this high mid-term turnout group. And, as a collateral benefit, it could also help with young people who would like to go to college but can’t afford it.
There is nothing parents want more than for their kids to do well, and they know that a good education is the surest ticket to fulfilling that goal. The party that strives to help fulfill this dream will not go unrewarded by middle-aged voters.

Liz Sidoti’s AP article, “Analysis: GOP, Dems compete for populist title” provides a revealing take on the framing battle between the parties with respect to financial industry reform. As Sidoti notes, both parties are “furiously casting each other as the handmaidens of Wall Street” because of “…polls showing voters favoring tighter controls on Wall Street.”
Fair enough. But Sidoti strays into false equivalency territory when she overstates her point that both parties have overindulged the financial industry. “Both share the blame for deregulating the industry in the 1990s and bailing out Wall Street when the financial sector was on the brink of collapse.” She provides some data on financial contributions which indicates Dems accepted more in contributions from the “the financial services, real estate and insurance sectors,” a curiously broad grouping, without noting that very few Republicans have supported major financial reforms in recent years, while leading Democrats have been in the forefront of advocates for reform.
Yes, some Democrats did go wobbly on their obligation to check Wall St. power. But suggesting that Democrats bear equal blame for the Bush meltdown with a party which views most forms of financial regulation as socialism is a big stretch. This part of Sidoti’s article provides an instructive example of how the MSM impulse to go overboard in being ‘even-handed’ can do a disservice to the truth. I sometimes wonder if this more subtle kind of distortion — particularly in the nation’s leading wire service — misleads more voters than Fox ‘News.’ (Media Matters for America documents examples of Sidoti’s alleged distortions in other articles here.)
Sidoti does better in illuminating the struggle for hearts and minds with respect to financial reform in the rest of her article, as in this glimpse of the respective ad campaigns to win the support of “the little guy”:

For years, Republicans stood by while Wall Street ran wild,” says a Democratic National Committee television spot. “Risky bets. Lax regulation. When the economy collapsed, Republicans looked the other way. … Now Republicans are working with Wall Street lobbyists to block reform” that would “protect consumers and prevent a future bailout.”
Countering, the Republican National Committee rolled out a video claiming the legislation rewards Wall Street with a “permanent bailout fund. … Propping up Wall Street is what Obama does, and Obama does it well.”

Sidoti also shows how ‘conflicted’ the public can be regarding Wall St. reform:

More than half — 58 percent — say that “the government has gone too far in regulating business and interfering with the free enterprise system,” and roughly half oppose government exerting more control over the economy. But, perhaps because their own pocketbooks are at stake, people make an exception for regulating the financial industry: Sixty-one percent say it’s a good idea for the government to more strictly limit the way major financial companies do business.
All that — combined with the fact that two-thirds of Americans own stock — underscores why the White House as well as Republicans and Democrats are competing to be the most populist. It also explains why Democrats and Republicans are trying to agree on a bipartisan bill even as they publicly castigate each other.

All of which suggests that pollsters could be doing a better job of pinpointing exactly what kind of financial industry reform the public believes is needed, and which reforms they consider intrusive. I suspect there is a small business/big business distinction lurking undetected outside the polling data
When the deal is finally done, don’t be surprised if the “blame game” is pretty much a draw, owing to the Republican MSM advantage. In terms of getting credit for presenting financial reform solutions, however, it shouldn’t be much of a contest. Democrats will have to screw up very badly to let the GOP get any credit at all.

On this 40th Earth Day, as President Obama prepares to nominate a new Supreme Court justice, environmentalists are perusing the records of prospective nominees.
Retiring Justice Stevens replaced the most ardent champion of the environment in the High Court’s history, Justice William O. Douglas, so environmentalists can’t be blamed for thinking of this seat as one that ought to be filled by someone who won’t allow corporate profits to trump environmental concerns. The records of all of the prospective nominees don’t reveal a lot about their environmental concerns per se — no one on the latest ‘short lists’ jumps out as a great champion of the environment. But perhaps the next best indicator is their decision-making with respect to the exercise of corporate power over the public interest.
Justice Douglas’s commitment to the environment would be impossible to match for any nominee. As the longest-serving justice in the history of the High Court, Justice Douglas ruled in favor of the environment at every opportunity. Nominated by FDR, he was also the youngest justice ever to be sworn in — at the age of forty. He reportedly hiked the entire Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine. In his dissenting opinion in the landmark environmental law case, Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972), he argued that “inanimate objects,” including trees have legal standing in lawsuits. An excerpt:

Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation. A ship has a legal personality, a fiction found useful for maritime purposes. The corporation sole — a creature of ecclesiastical law — is an acceptable adversary and large fortunes ride on its cases…. So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes — fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels, otter, fisher, deer, elk, bear, and all other animals, including man, who are dependent on it or who enjoy it for its sight, its sound, or its life. The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it.

It was the leadership of Justice Douglas that saved the Buffalo River in Arkansas and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. He also swayed the High Court to preserve the Red River Gorge in eastern Kentucky, which is Holy Ground to folks from that part of the country. A trail in the Gorge is named in his honor, as is The William O. Douglas Wilderness, adjoining Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state, along with Douglas Falls in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. There is a lot more that can be said about the visionary leadership of Douglas on behalf of the environment, but environmentalists would be happy with a justice with half his phenomenal commitment to mother earth.
Here’s hoping the President will keep William O. Douglas in mind when he nominates his choice to fill the seat once occupied by the justice who did more than any other to protect America’s natural heritage.

The last week has claimed the lives of two giants of the Civil Rights struggle, Rev. Benjamin Hooks and Dorothy Height, who died early this morning. Both made outstanding contributions to the African American freedom struggle. But Dorothy Height, who had the longer life, leaves a tremendous void in the hearts of civil rights activists.
For progressives, Height, who headed the National Council of Negro Women for four decades, was the consummate activist-leader and certainly the preeminent role model for leaders who want to comport themselves with dignity, humility and energetic dedication to a great cause. MLK, along with FDR, and every subsequent Democratic President sought and valued her counsel and wisdom.
As a lower-level functionary in a civil rights organization, I once sat in as a note taker more than anything else, in a conference call joined by a half-dozen nationally-known civil rights leaders. The topic will remain confidential, out of respect for the participants’ privacy. What I remember many years later is the sudden, hushed silence that came when it was Height’s turn to speak. The unspoken subtext in that silence was, ‘OK everyone has had their say, now let’s all pipe down and hear what wisdom has to say.’ Height did not disappoint. In clear, measured terms she summarized the various arguments’ pros and cons and recommended the course of action that was adopted without argument. I got the impression that all of the participants regarded her as their best thinker.
The Washington Post report on Height’s death featured a couple of wonderful quotes by Height worth sharing and remembering, both of which have some applications for Democratic strategy :

“If the times aren’t ripe, you have to ripen the times.”

and,

Stop worrying about whose name gets in the paper and start doing something about rats, and day care and low wages. . . . We must try to take our task more seriously and ourselves more lightly.

Height never married or raised a family. Her life was given to serve the disadvantaged and forgotten. I know of no modern-day leaders who command the same kind of universal respect and admiration as did Height, who leaves behind a powerful example of selfless, dignified leadership for a more decent society.