Studs Terkel, George Carlin... who else deserved to see Obama cross the finish line?

[Bucky]

Lordy, it pains me to see so many great Americans not quite see their country start to redeem itself. Not that we don't all redeem our country a little bit every time we resist the evil that the worst of our fellow citizens do. But dammit, Obama's election is going to be such an important milestone.

I know I'll go to my final rest a bit happier if I die during a Democratic administration.

[silverweb]

1. Paul Newman.

n/t

[Faygo Kid]

6. That's a great call.

Thanks for it.

[truth please]

48. My African-American Grandma who will be 103 years old in April

and has lived through some of the most horrific times in this country. She now has Alheizmers and doesn't know any of us anymore. She can not understand what is happening now. She would be sooooo proud!! Everytime I go to see her I tell her a black man may become President of the United States. Wish she knew it.

[JitterbugPerfume]

72. Kurt Vonnegut

[Patsy Stone]

2. Ann Richards and Molly Ivins.

RIP. :loveya:

[RichardRay]

5. I miss Molly Ivins - a lot. n/t

[Patsy Stone]

15. I know.

There will never be another.

[Rowdyboy]

68. Ann and Molly are my picks too....Wish they could be here....

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Rosa Parks, Molly Ivins, Anne Richards.

[ebdarcy]

4. His mom.

[dbmk]

31. Kills me she does not experience this.

[avaistheone1]

78. Definitely, his mom.

She would be overjoyed.

Obama looks alot like his mom. He has her eyes and the shape of her face.

[Mad_Dem_X]

79. Definitely. n/t

[ROh70]

7. Tim Russert, Thurgood Marshall.

[Gregorian]

8. Hunter Thompson.

It's ok. They're better off where they are. I envy them somewhat.

[OmahaBlueDog]

40. I think of "Fear and Loathing on the '72 Campaign Trail" a lot these days

Hunter would have been perfect for this occasion

[Gregorian]

50. Jon Stewart is good, but he doesn't have that razor edge.

I like slicing stuff up.

[Warren DeMontague]

82. I see the stuff Matt Taibbi is doing these days as clearly HST influenced.

And yeah, Hunter S. Thompson was the name that came into my head immediately when I saw this thread.

[Gregorian]

83. Thanks! I haven't heard of him.

I bookmarked a youtube for when I have more bandwidth.

Man, there are a lot of great people around. I sometimes worry. But there are two sides to everything. There are two Palins for every Cleese. So it just looks scary. That's why they game the system. They know they're weak.

[slampoet]

66. Still the best political book written about that election or any other.

[OmahaBlueDog]

69. This quote (from '72) basically was a prophecy of what's happened in the last 8 years

<<If the current polls are reliable... Nixon will be re-elected by a huge majority of Americans who feel he is not only more honest and more trustworthy than George McGovern, but also more likely to end the war in Vietnam. The polls also indicate that Nixon will get a comfortable majority of the Youth Vote. And that he might carry all fifty states... This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. The tragedy of all this is that George McGovern, for all his mistakes... understands what a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race this country might have been, if we could have kept it out of the hands of greedy little hustlers like Richard Nixon. McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose... Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President? >>

[MarthaMyDear]

75. I wish Hunter S Thompson was here...he would REALLY...

enjoy all the drama...I can't even imagine what his take on Palin would be!

[Lucy Goosey]

9. MLK, RFK

If they had been able to live out their natural lives, they could have still been here - they would be in their eighties.

[damndude]

10. bernie mac

[hellbound-liberal]

11. Jackie Robinson

[KingFlorez]

12. Coretta Scott King

[luvs2sing]

13. My mother...

who would have been in political hog heaven over this presidential race and would have loved Obama as much as I do. :loveya:

[whitewomenforobama]

14. Abe Lincoln /nt

[Occam Bandage]

16. His mother.

[Bucky]

18. Yep, that one's a heartwrencher.

I wonder if he'll be the first president with two living grandmothers, tho.

[MadBadger]

17. Anne Dunham and Tim Russert

[CakeGrrl]

19. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones and Bill Gwatney

in addition to his mom and grandpa, of course.

For all his Repub water-carrying, I think Tim Russert would have truly enjoyed watching it happen.

[speedoo]

20. This dear woman....

[lxlxlxl]

23. Alice Coltrane, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, and David Foster Wallace.

xxx

None of these people got 1/10 of the media coverage that dumb ass Sarah Palin does...

[expatriate]

21. Andy Stephenson. n/t

[coffeenap]

71. I thought of him first too....

[dflprincess]

22. Medgar Evers, Hubert Humphrey, Paul Wellstone

(as well as everyone else who has already been mentioned)

[BigAnth]

24. My daughter Bonnie, who took her own life at the age of 15.

She truly despised George Bush. She wrote him a letter before the Iraq war in 2003 at the age of 10 and organized a peace service at our church. I know that she was extremely disappointed by the start of the war, and I didn't have any very good explanations for her as to why this should be allowed to happen. She was a talented musician (vocalist and keyboard) and a smart, loving caring girl with a great sense of humor. She even enjoyed my eclectic musical tastes and was getting into artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Django Reinhardt, Blind Boy Fuller, Lynrd Skynrd, Neil Young, Memphis Minnie and Dan Hicks & his Hot Licks.

Her mental illness started in 2004 and it took off way faster than we could keep up with it. She died on May 27, 2007. I miss her like crazy every day and know that she would be so excited by Obama's great campaign. I'll be thinking of her on Tuesday night when Obama clinches it. She would be very pleased.

[Bucky]

27. Hope is too a rare commodity some times. I think she'd be happy we found a leader with tons of it

:hug: God bless you, Anth. I can only send you electrons through the internet, but my electrons are hugging you.

[BigAnth]

30. Thanks. This election has been very therapeutic for me.

Obama's message of hope is just what I need to hear.

[renate]

51. I am so, so, so, so sorry

There just aren't words....

:cry::hug:

[WinkyDink]

60. {{{BigAnth}}} Bless you and your Bonnie.

[Perky]

25. Martin and Bobby

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

47. Amen

ronnykmarshall posted a wonderful little observation on another thread

Rosa sat so Martin could walk
Martin walked so Barack could run
Barack ran so we could all fly.


I'm an atheist, but I honestly believe in a kind of cosmic memory. Martin, Bob, Malcolm, John, Hubert, Paul W, LBJ, Barbara Jordan, Molly, Ann, and many, many other heroes, famous and otherwise, are smiling down on Barack Obama. Thankfully, John Lewis is still with us, and as outspoken as ever, to witness for them.

[Versailles]

26. My fiancee's father.

Not a big name I know. However, he passed on October 3rd of a heart attack possibly brought on by complications from Agent Orange. My fiancee and I are getting married on November 15th and he didn't get to see his daughter get married. U.S. Army Captain Frank Hoffman and I had talked many times about politics and after we got past the initial feeling each other out phase, I found he was a huge supporter of Obama. He was excited to see his grandchildren who followed in his footsteps by joining the military come home under an Obama presidency. He felt that prudence and diplomacy were the way any smart person approached conflict, resorting to violence only when there was no other option. Before he passed, he had been in constant battles with the veteran's offices to get his benefits raised as he had numerous complications the doctors attributed to his exposure to Agent Orange. He knew first hand the treatment of veterans by the republican policies. He never had the chance to cast his vote in North Carolina unfortunately. When my fiancee and I went to see Obama speak in Fayetteville, it weighed heavily on my mind that Frank would have loved to have joined us. I know that when I cast my vote down here in SC, I will not only be casting it for myself, but for the man I never got to call Dad.

[fizzgig]

28. my dad's mom

she passed away unexpectedly back in february and i can only imagine the types of conversations we would have had over the past few months. i always knew her as a staunch dem. she worked as a union organizer in nyc for (i think) close to 40 years. she was a delegate to the dnc in 1996. she met president clinton. she was die hard for hillary clinton before her death, but i know she would have put all her heart behind obama.

as an aside, dad's family is jewish and i wish grandma were here to smack the crap out of her middle son, who said he won't vote for obama because he's black.

[sunnybrook]

29. Coretta Scott King

[EastTennesseeDem]

32. George Carlin died exactly when he wanted to

"This country's finished," he said on Olbermann.

Although I believe this country will be great again, he seemed resigned to this sentiment, and there probably couldn't have been a more opportune time for his death.

[babylonsister]

33. For some reason Russert comes to mind because he was such a

political geek. I wish Obama's mama was around, too, and his granddad.

And that lovely lady who cast her ballot recently and died after she was assured it had happened.

[Aristus]

34. My mother's father.

My grandfather was an ultra-conservative Alabama racist who was still calling African-American men "boy" to their faces as recently as the 1980's. He died last year at 96 after suffering years of dementia. I wish he had lived long enough to see a black man elected President, and been lucid enough to understand what was happening.

I loved him, but his racism...ooh...:scared:...just awful!

[mellomel]

35. My dad. :(

He died a few months ago at the age of 55; found out he had cancer and two days later he died in ICU. He had voted for Hillary Clinton in the presidential preference primary, but had been really impressed with Barack Obama and had planned on voting for him in the General Election. He was pretty enthusiastic about Obama and it seemed as though Obama had the same effect on my dad as he does on me: he made him feel inspired and hopeful.

I remember sitting in the hospital just a few days before my dad died and we were talking about the direction the country had been going in and he had said he was really looking forward to a change. I wish he was alive today to vote for Obama and I wish he was alive to see Obama become our next President. My dad was a life-long Democrat. By no means was he perfect, he had his faults... but he always voted for the elected official he thought would be the best for his community or the best for our country as a whole and it would have been Obama this year.

[Colobo]

36. Tim Russert. He was looking forward to this badly.

[Richardo]

37. I want his grandmother to make it to Wednesday at least....

...hopefully a lot longer.

[codjh9]

38. My mother - loved Obama, but died in May 2007, dammit. She's probably my subconscious

reason for doing more in this election than I ever have before - well, that and having endured the 20-something (seemingly) years of the Bush Imperial Wizardry.

[mitchum]

39. leftofthedial's mother

[stuntcat]

41. my Grandma

my Grandma Lutie. She never worked or drove but she was wiser than anyone else I know. This would have been wonderful to her. She would have written a beautiful poem about it.

[Onlooker]

42. Jerry Falwell

Though hopefully they have a tv in hell where he can watch the returns.

[PlanetBev]

43. My brother-in-law, Jack

Great liberal, passed away unexpectantly in 2005. An Emmy Award winning videographer, sometimes worked on "Real Time".

[Bubbha Jo]

44. Abraham Lincoln. There's gonna be a whole lot of clapping going on

in the heavens above on the day he gets sworn in.

[damonm]

57. Don't think so...

Lincoln WAS Republican, after all...:)
Although, if Lincoln's a republican clapping , then we gotta include Eisenhower; wasn't it HE who sent the troops to Little Rock in 1957? He signed into law the first Civil Rights legislation since the 1870s. He's gotta be smiling at this.

[lonestarnot]

45. My sweet Daddy.

[gardenista]

46. One of my friends

who fought a hideous cancer, losing her leg, but still fighting. And still railing against Bush. She was a smart lady, and had we not lost her a year ago, she would be out there canvassing on crutches. She would have loved to see this day.

[Blue_Tires]

49. Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond

Isaac Hayes
Ron Brown
Shirley Chisholm
Ralph David Abernathy
Thurgood Marshall
James Brown
the list can go on all night

[JeffR]

52. Molly Ivins, Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter Thompson and my mom

God rest their souls.

[TTUBatfan2008]

53. Carlin? You've gotta be kidding...

The man hated politicians. Sure, he was tougher on conservatives than on liberals but he still bashed the hell out of politicians in general. Given how cynical he was, I'm sure he held the same low opinion of Obama that held of every other politician. He is the greatest stand up comedian ever...or at least, I should say he's my personal favorite even if there's not a consensus on him being the greatest. :)

[renate]

54. what incredibly touching memories

I am so sad about the past eight years but so happy that our country is going to start healing. There are so many people, whether named here or not, whose hearts would be gladdened by this if they were still here to see it... they would be happy for us, though, and that is some comfort in their absence.

[Monk06]

55. John Kenneth Galbraith, Pierre Trudeau, Morticai Richler, Marlon Brando, Sterling Hayden

[damonm]

56. Barbara Jordan. nt

[carnie_sf]

58. Malcolm X

[lamp_shade]

59. My Mother. She passed away one year ago today 11/1.

She was a BIG Obama supporter. I miss her.

[spinbaby]

61. Kephra n/t

[Forkboy]

62. .....

:thumbsup:

[JitterbugPerfume]

73. yes ,Kef

and Oneighty

[Forkboy]

63. I can think of 4,188 people I wish were still around to it.

[LeftishBrit]

64. 'Deserved' in a different sense - but Jesse Helms!

As he'd lived this long, I wish he'd lived just a few months longer and then gone into spontaneous combustion at the result!

[slampoet]

65. Hunter S.

[dbt]

67. Ray Charles, Lou Rawls, Wilson Pickett & John R. Cash!

:loveya:

[endelfam]

70. My great grandfather....

Back in the 1910's he intentionally sent my mom to an integrated school in Detroit because he said that, during her life, she would see black people step forward and take a full role in the government and society. He was a socialist and friend of Emma Goldman, and I am very proud of him.

Turns out great grandfather was right. My mother is 96 and, God willing, she will witness Obama's inauguration.

Our victories--the victories of the Democrats and the left in general--are built on the backs of many small but important supporters down through history. Obama is the next link in that chain.

Go OBAMA!

[Aloha Spirit]

80. That's amazing! On Tuesday night, we'll all be thinking about the people who came before Obama.

[Aloha Spirit]

74. Anyone with a sense of justice who had to endure the long arc of our country's history

as it bends toward justice.

[indie_voter]

76. my dad n/t

[GreenFiles]

77. Heath Ledger

..? I dunno

[alsame]

81. My dad, who volunteered for Adlai Stevenson. He died in

Jan 06 and didn't even get to see the Democratic victories later that year.