My mother just informed me that former US Congressman Ike Skelton of Missouri died today. Ike Skelton was a Democrat Representative from conservative central Missouri for 34 years and won 17 back to back elections.
He was finally unseated by a Republican tea party candidate in 2010.
I met him several times and he was very fond of my grandfather as they were 'round table' buddies: meaning the two of them and several of the other town patriarchs gathered together every morning for coffee, politics, and gossip, mostly.
I did have to reintroduce myself each time I met him as John Pelham's grandson. In 2010, I reached out to him and his congressional office during the fall of Don't Ask, Don't Tell for his vote and his office gave me a generic response back, even though I dropped my grandfather's name. As a result of his voting to keep DADT in place, he lost the lgbt vote in Missouri and ultimately the election in 2010 after winning every election in a row since the 1970s.
Whether or not the two are correlated is doubtful but he did lose to a strong tea party candidate that year. He originally, as a Democrat, did NOT vote for Obamacare in the House of Reps' final voting... Makes me wonder what inevitably cost him his seat in the house? An affiliation to the Democrats that the state was sick of? His voting NO for Obamacare in 2009 but then voting in 2010 NOT to repeal it?
Either way, I feel for his family. Whether or not I agreed with his social politics in the end, he was still a gentleman and seemed like he was passionate towards my home state of Missouri. And he was always dedicated throughout his entire career to one key issue: veteran's and armed serviceman rights and benefits.
RIP indeed.
