A Plea for Diplomacy and Leadership in Politics

My "senator of origin" is Everett McKinley Dirksen, Republican of Illinois.  He was the Republican Leader of the senate when Republicans were chronically in the minority.  I long for his stately manner, shock of white hair, mellifluous voice, poetic rhetoric, and willingness to sit down and talk to anybody about how to get something done for the good of the country, whether or not it was in the Republican Party's best interests.  Here's quote from the Senate's obituary when he died in 1969, that catches the spirit I'm remembering:

"There are 100 diverse personalities in the U.S. Senate.  Oh Great God.  What an amazing and dissonant 100 personalities they are!  What an amazing thing it is to harmonize them."  

The people running for Senate today seem to me to be lacking in any sense of the "amazing."  They're angry, pitifully immature, and reactive.  I can't believe I'm longing for a this Republican throwback! 

Of course living in Kentucky is especially hard for this kind of sensitivity.  I know Illinois may not be that much better than Kentucky in its narrowness and racism, but I have a high view of my home state because of the politicians of my youth like Dirksen, Adlai Stevenson and Paul Simon.

Don't even get me started on another positive icon:  Paul Wellstone of Minnesota!