My grandma vs Harry Reid

[Zulu451]

http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/smith/Char...the_grave.html

My grandmother's obituary. She was his campaign manager for his first 2 campaigns for US House of Representatives. I grew up stuffing envelopes and wearing his T-shirts. Now she is going viral. She has made it drudge!

[Archaea]

Sorry for your loss. I didn't know you were from that family.

[Zulu451]

She was very ill and has been miserable for the past couple of years. Thank you for the well wishes.

[MikeWaters]

To me it's kind of bizarre that the family would put that in her obituary. I mean, if she wrote it herself, that's one thing, but the obit seems to make it clear that she did not write it, nor ask for it to be written.

On the other hand, obituaries can contain about anything anyone wants. We have linked some doozies here on this site.

[Zulu451]

Mike

While I can certainly see the perspective that you bring up, you would have to understand the background and whole picture.

My grandmother and grandfather were both die hard democrats. Union workers, coal miners, machinist union democrats. They saw the democrat party as the party and vehicle to bring people up out of the tent coal miner camps into the main stream and provide a better life. They grew up idolizing Roosevelt, Kennedy, Truman and such.

My grandmother never graduated from high school and eventually earned her GED. She learned how to organize and became a real community organizer. She was instrumental in rallying and organizing the resistance to the Equal Rights Amendment in the state of Nevada, which was the state that turned the balance against that amendment. She spent her entire adult life involved in politics. She successfully managed campaigns of congressmen, governors, mayors, city council, county commissioners, and state legislators. Even in her 70's she had candidates coming to her for campaign advice.

As a child I remember spending many, many weekends in the summers stuffing thousands of envelopes, knocking doors, and passing out flyers. Politics was her life. When she ran Reid's campaign, she believed in him. When he turned his back on the ideals that she thought that he shared, she felt betrayed and eventually mailed him her membership card to the democrat party. As the ensuing years passed, and Reid continued to actively work against the values that she felt he betrayed (ex. abortion) she expressed how she regretted helping run his campaign.

It was not a political stunt or someone trying to gain attention. It was truly an expression of my grandmother's passion and in the end her disdain for politics.

[MikeWaters]

It's just that I would expect an obit to focus on the deceased, rather than on their opinion of others, whether notable or not.

[Zulu451]

In a way it did. You would have to have known my grandmother.

[Archaea]

I believe I met her, and in fact worked with her on a campaign or two. If it's who I think she was, she was quite a lady.

[RedHeadGal]

Hmm... I agree that it's strange to put words in a dead person's mouth as part of a hotly contested political race. Whether she would have liked it or not. She can't correct it, see? In case her loved ones got the sentiment wrong.

Harry Reid is in my stake, and I've seen him at stake conference a few times. In fact, at least once they made a big deal out of him and called him forward to speak extemporaneously. (He always gives the same conversion speech). I bring this up because I believe the vast majority probably really hates his politics, but they can't help themselves from admiring the fame, political position, etc.

His portrait also used to hang in the high council room, although I've noticed it's been removed in the last several months. Many LDS political luminaries hang in the wall in that high council room, just on the opposite wall from the portrarits of the First Pres and the 12.

[Archaea]

Harry has strayed from his roots and has become much more liberal than the west usually enjoys. Too much time on the Potomac.