Susan Lenfestey - my neighbor for many years growing up - wrote a column recently in the Strib called "What Would Molly Do?" in which she shared that she wishes Molly Ivins was still around to give her perspective on the current presidential race. I have had the same longing.
Molly Ivins always told it like it was - whether you liked her brand of politics of not. I'm sure folks in Texas and around the country have called her lots of things, but I doubt anyone ever called her a liar.
One interesting fact that Lenfestey found but I had somehow missed in '06 was that Ivins apparently wrote in a Jan '06 column: "I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president. Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation, and equivocation."
Wow - how did I miss that two years ago?
Ivins also wrote a piece about Gene McCarthy that - while not intended to be a comparison to Obama, holds an interesting echo from the 60's that speaks to our needs in America today:
"There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief. If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it."
Substitute Illinois for Minnesota, as Lenfestey did, and it's no surprise that Molly Ivins was ahead of her time in predicting exactly the wave of Obama support that we're witnessing with his win of three more states this weekend.
Amazing woman. No wonder we miss her!
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