Sad news from New Hampshire:
Campaign finance activist Doris "Granny D" Haddock, who walked across the country pushing for reform at age 90, died last night surrounded by family in her Dublin home. She was 100.
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"She always said she'd live to be 100, and she did," Jim Haddock, her son, said.
Born in Laconia in 1910, Haddock was drawn to politics in 1960, when she opposed a plan to test hydrogen bombs in Alaska. After retiring as an assistant at a shoe company, she again became involved in politics in the 1990s.
Ten years ago, she walked across the country in support of removing "soft" money from electoral politics, later writing a book about the experience. In 2004 she was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, challenging incumbent Republican Judd Gregg and garnering 34 percent of the vote. After the election, she continued her efforts by speaking at political rallies and continuing her daily walks.
Photo courtesy of OVEC
Mrs. Haddock was also a great friend of West Virginia, and walked through our state on her march to Washington. Over the last decade, she continued to work with local activists, such as Ken Hechler, Winnie Fox and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.
- Her thoughts on coal and mountaintop removal, from a 2003 speech, can be found here.
She remained active beyond her 100th birthday and, last month, urged citizens to organize and fight against the Supreme Court's now infamous ruling allowing unlimited spending by corporations in political races:
The Supreme Court, representing a radical fringe that does not share the despair of the grand majority of Americans, has today made things considerably worse by undoing the modest reforms I walked for and went to jail for, and that tens of thousands of other Americans fought very hard to see enacted. So now, thanks to this Court, corporations can fund their candidates without limits and they can run mudslinging campaigns against everyone else, right up to and including election day.
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And to the Supreme Court, you force us to defend our democracy--a democracy of people and not corporations--by going in breathtaking new directions. And so we shall. |
