Granny D, the elderly campaign finance reform agitator, has died at the age of 100. She walked across the country and ran for the Senate on a campaign finance platform, and the when the Supreme Court voted 5-4 last month to strike down the laws she fought for, it was a sad and ironic end to a very long life.
When the ruling was handed down, she issued a statement, reading in part:
“The Supreme Court, representing a radical fringe that does not share the despair of the grand majority of Americans, has today made things considerably worse by undoing the modest reforms I walked for and went to jail for and that tens of thousand of other Americans fought very hard to see enacted.
I realize she must have been absolutely crushed by the ruling, but really, “the depair of the grand majority of Americans?” That’s such a jarring, depressing thing to say, as though we were all characters in a Chekhov play, that I’m half sure it was a misquote. Even sadder is the implication, by its juxtaposition with the previous phrase, that to be hopeful is to be part of a “radical fringe.” Just a year ago, Obama won a majority campaigning on hope, but now? He’s the Lyndon LaRouche of the emotional world.
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