Walk on By.

• Author: Lynch, Michael W.
• Position: Doris "Granny D" Haddock - Chrissie Hynde - John DeStefano Jr. - Brief Article

In which our man in Washington contemplates campaign finances, holy cows, and raw sewage

Date: 3/7/2000, 11:27:30 a.m.

From: mwLynch@reason.com

Subj: Granny D in DC

Surrounded by TV cameras and followed by hundreds of placard-waving fans, 90-year-old Doris "Granny D" Haddock pounded out the last few miles of her 3,200-mile walk across the United States. Undoubtedly the only person ever inspired by a Bill Bradley speech, Granny D had decided that something needed to be done about campaign finance after walking 60 miles to hear Bradley speak in New Hampshire in 1997. She tailed the 1999 Rose Bowl parade out in Pasadena and has just kept on a-walkin'. She's averaged 10 miles each day she walked; she's worn through four pairs of sneakers and four straw hats; she celebrated her 89th and 90th birthdays on the road; and she has achieved an optimal tan. All in the hopes of securing public funding of elections.

It's been no Sunday stroll, however. She spent four days hydrating in a hospital as the result of her trek across the Mojave Desert. At times, she was urged to quit, or at least take a ride across the desert. But she kept going and going, the Energizer Bunny of a really stupid idea. (We spend our whole lives being screwed by pols; now we should pay for their campaigns?) This was her moment of triumph. Common Cause, the leftwing lobby backing her, was passing out signs, "End Soft $ Now" and "End Legalized Bribery." Someone was in a full-body cat costume, cigar stuck in its mouth. A fat man wrapped in a sheet blew his bugle and banged his bongo.

That there was a crowd surprised me. I figured Granny D would draw about as many folks as a rally for the American Nazi Party: She's a loon and no one really cares about campaign finance, except John McCain, Russ Feingold, and Ralph Nader. Yet assembled were people ranging from the very young to very old and the very white to the even whiter. They earnestly believe that the only reason why the United States isn't Sweden is because moneyed interests corrupt politicians. And boy do they long for Sweden.

Granny D wannabes were everywhere. A phalanx of nine grandmas wearing straw sun hats sang a customized version of "Glory Glory Hallelujah" while being followed closely by a commensurate number of empty wheelchairs. Occasionally, Granny D would stop and utter some words. At the Lincoln Memorial, she quoted the Great Emancipator's calls for a government "of the people, by the people, for the people," a...