At 90, Doris “Granny D” Haddock walked across the United States to raise awareness for campaign reform. At 94, she ran for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire. She has often credited her longevity to the vigor of her drive for political reform, but I’m pretty sure she would have liked to sit back and eat a little cake last week instead of watching the Supreme Court open up a whole new world of corporate ability to influence elections .
Campaign finance reform isn’t often a human interest story, but Granny D made it one. What news outlet could resist a woman in her 90s willing to call a corrupt spade a spade? At 100, she’s still advocating reform, and wisely taking the new ruling as an opportunity to call attention again to the problems that still exist in campaign financing -an issue that’s easy to ignore. I shop in a bookstore that offers a discount to members, but you can only sign up online, and I never think about signing up except when I’m actually at the cash register. Most Americans don’t think much about reforming campaign financing except when we’re in the middle of a campaign, but maybe now, with states addressing this ruling and more advocacy from Granny D, we’ll see real change.
