Tim Russert Dies Of A Heart Attack
Submitted by David Potts on Fri, 06/13/2008 - 4:45pm.
Tim Russert, the voice of politics in my household, died of a heart attack this afternoon. Tim had been the moderator of NBC's Meet the Press since 1991, and the chief of NBC News' Washington Bureau since 1988. Tim's significant Ohio connections include his entire college education, as he was an alumnus of University Heights, Ohio's John Carroll University, as well as Cleveland's Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.
Tim is survived by his wife, Maureen Orth, and their son Luke. He was 58 years old.
Thanks For Sharing
Submitted by David Potts on Fri, 06/13/2008 - 10:50pm.
This is going to a very strange election without to insights of Tim to keep everything on track.
I can barely believe it...
Submitted by ols on Sat, 06/14/2008 - 12:58am.
I, too, consider Russert to be the voice of politics for my family. Even though his passing has come up several times for me today, I still can not believe he is gone. He will certainly be missed.
Tim Russert
I met Tim back in October or November 1975, when he was in his last year at Cleveland-Marshall. I was an undergrad at CSU at the time. Tim was coordinating the Ohio campaign of former Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris, who was seeking the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination. Fred Harris chaired the DNC for a period of time back in the 60s, was on Hubert H. Humphrey's short list for VP in 1968, served on the Kerner Commission on Civil Disorders in the late 60s, briefly ran for president in 1972, and ran again in 1976 on a progressive, populist platform. When he was at the DNC, he was responsible for many of the presidential nominating process reforms that led directly to George McGovern's nomination in 1972.
Tim met Fred a few years earlier when he was the student events coordinator at John Carroll while an undergrad there, and brought Fred in to speak. When he was at JCU, I believe Tim also scheduled a concert by a then little known musician named Bruce Springsteen. Anyway, Tim and Harris became good friends--"drinking buddies"--as Tim put it to me at the time. When Fred decided to run for president again, he asked Tim to coordinate his campaign in Ohio.
I got involved in the Harris campaign in the Fall of 75 and worked for Tim for about 4 or 5 months--until Fred dropped out of the race in March or early April 1976. I ended up being a gopher of sorts for him, keeping in contact with other volunteers around the state, distributing literature, and organizing some of the district delegate nominating caucuses in the Cleveland area, among other things. Tim used to tell me that his political views were a bit more conservative than those of Harris, but liked and respected him, and he wanted to do what he could to assist his campaign. When I went off on leftist diatribes, which I sometimes did, Tim would tell me about his blue-collar father in Buffalo, and how ridiculous my rantings would sound to him.
I lost track of Tim after that and didn't know his whereabouts for several years until I read a story about him in the Village Voice in the early 80s, when he was working for Mario Cuomo in his native New York State. Although I've lived in the DC area for nearly 20 years, I never crossed paths with him again.
I don't think Tim's involvement in the Fred Harris campaign is very well known. I've never seen it mentioned in any story about him. Fred Harris retired from politics after the 76 campaign, and moved to Albuquerque to teach at the University of New Mexico. He is now an emeritus professor at UNM and, according to Wikipedia, an adjunct professor at Oklahoma University. His former wife, LaDonna, was Barry Commoner's running mate when he ran as an independent for president in 1980.
Cleveland City Councilman Jay Westbrook, and former Cleveland Councilman and State Senator Dan Brady also worked on the Harris campaign in Ohio, long before they began their own political careers. Dan was a student at OU in Athens at the time.