Remembering journalist
Tim Russert
Guest Columnist
By Lou Baldwin
“Do you think Barak Obama can be elected president?”
Tim Russert hesitated slightly when he fielded the question. This was October 2007. Not a single primary had yet been held, but conventional wisdom had Hillary Rodham Clinton as a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination, and you don’t win presidential elections if you’re not your party’s nominee. The truth is, Russert probably thought she was going to win, too.
But the question was put to him by an eighth-grader at Gesu School, an entirely African-American private school in North Philadelphia. These kids knew no African-American had ever come even close to being president and they desperately wanted to see one of their own finally in the White House. “Yes, he could,” Russert answered.
He then delivered an analysis of the upcoming primary season, starting with the Iowa caucuses that Obama would have to win to establish credibility. He listed a series of key primaries that could give Obama the momentum to go the distance. “But first he has to win the Iowa caucuses,” he cautioned.
In point of fact, the Obama campaign followed almost to the letter the scenario laid out so clearly by Russert to that eighth grade class, and the Illinois senator is the presumptive Democrat nominee for president.
But Russert didn’t visit Gesu just to give the kids a civics lesson. A product of blue collar Buffalo, N.Y., he was educated by Jesuits there at Canisius High School, and later at John Carroll University in Ohio.
He was in Philadelphia to receive the Jesuit “Magis Spirit Award” and since he is an honorary board member of the Jesuit-sponsored Gesu and wanted to be more than a celebrity name on the letterhead, he visited the school.
The core of Russert’s talk to the students concerned values. The values he learned as a child at St. Bonaventure School, at Canisius and at John Carroll. Values that were reinforced by his mother, who reviewed her children’s homework every night as well as heard their prayers. Values instilled by his father, Tim (Big Russ) Russert, to whom his memoir “Big Russ and Me” is dedicated.
Money had nothing to do with it. The Russerts were proudly working class. His dad collected trash, drove trucks and spent his spare time at the American Legion hall. You could say Tim Russert was self-made, but he was the first to insist he was the product of great parents and great teachers.
All of this shines through “Big Russ and Me,” which is an absorbing read. Other things that are obvious through his writing are his love for his Catholic faith and the enormous love for his family, including his wife, Maureen, and only son, Luke.
Many of the kids he spoke to at the Gesu don’t have an active father figure in their lives. For that matter, in the society in which we live, all too often fathers are only around during bi-weekly weekend visitations.
Tim Russert practiced what he preached in his family life, in his spiritual life and in his professional life, as was affirmed by the outpouring of praise engendered by his sudden death on June 13. He will be missed because it is hard to replace the very best.
One last thing about Russert’s local analysis on how Obama could pull an upset win for the Democratic nomination. Not long ago, he and his friend, Cardinal John Foley, were discussing the fall presidential election. Russert raised the possibility that the Electoral College could be deadlocked, thus throwing the election into the hands of the House of Representatives, something that hasn’t happened since 1800.
He didn’t predict it would happen, just that it could happen. He then gave a detailed scenario of how the states would have voted for this to happen. One hopes it doesn’t, Tim. Politics are already too complicated.
Lou Baldwin is a member of St. Leo Parish and a freelance writer.