Tim Russert

Saturday June 14 2008.

Washington DC

Tim Russert's death notice hit our blackberries in our headquarters yesterday during our last walk-through staff meeting for our 76th Annual Meeting in Miami which kicks off next Friday. As usual, many were dealing with messages and reading their blackberries during the meeting and while we were briefed on the mayors and police chiefs meeting we are having in Miami---there was a series of gasps and rumbles of human sounds drowning out the presentation. People felt it inside their bodies when they read the words "Tim Russert is Dead of a Heart Attack His family says" and it had to come out. But it did not stop our meeting. It is crunch time here. We are days away from rollout time We continued on. That's the way it has to be.

Tim Russert's death hits Washington as we know him as a Washington operator and celebrity, who used to be a staff guy like us, a non elected guy who became famous-- who came from Buffalo and never did let you forget how strongly he felt about cities and the life in Buffalo that made him forever be "of Buffalo" even though he was a Washington person and a national repected tv professoional journalist standing above the others.

He worked as staff for probably the best two politicians in recent history. Mario Cuomo, the Governor of New York and Senator Pat Moynihan.

Mayor Joe Riley would always say that Pat Moynihan was the smartest man in the Senate. Moynihan chose Tim Russert to run his New York political office before Tim was 30. Moynihan knew what he was doing.

Tim hosted "Meet The Press" live with mayors at our Annual Meeting in Cleveland in 1996. It was the year that President Clinton came, our homepage website usmayors.org was launched, Mayor Daley became our President and Mayor Riley threw out the first ball at the Cleveland Indians game. We were all there. Ed Somers and I had two hotdogs with lots of mustard after we had turned down the box lunch with a chicken salad sandwich and a banana! We remember the important things. Tim was a big part of our 1996 Cleveland Annual Meeting.

Tim later came to our Winter Meeting the year General Colin Powell's Americas Promise was starting. He was representing the organization and was eloquent talking about the need for young people and more college graduates to chose public service, explaining how his father raised him and provided for him while working proudly as a garbage collector, driver and then foreman in his native beloved Buffalo.

Some people come to Washington and learn to dress differently, act differently, and think differently. Tim Russert didn't. Everyone knew where he was from because he told you over and over. He celebrated Buffalo in his speeches and informal talks and broadcasted it with his Buffalo Bills shoutouts on Sunday signoffs.

Meet The Press has a strong history with The United States Conference of Mayors. Its founder, Mr Lawrence Spivak would hold one hour-yes, one hour long -- Meet The Press live shows for many years in the 60s and the early 70s. Mr Spivak would come with his wife and it was a big deal. You could go and watch it. You would be seated in a studio. The first one I attended the ushers-men and women- wore white gloves and you were properly seated. Mr Spivak would fire rapid questions for a solid hour. The set was two tiered with a row of mayors on top and another in the row below. Riots, civil rights, poverty, housing, the Viet Nam War, block grants versus categorical programs and states versus cities. They were remarkable sessions. We need more today .

When Mr Spivak retired, the Leadership of The Conference of Mayors presented him with the Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest honor we bestow upon an individual.

I would see Tim Russert from time to time at evening events and luncheons and he would say "how are the mayors" and I would say, They are fine but would be a hell of a lot better if we could get more on Meet The Press like we used to do!!.

His death has hit the nation as if a head of state has passed. It has so much to do with the power of television. I have said since President Kennedy's death in 1963, television has become the most important thing in our daily lives. It is the place we go to mourn. It used to be that we would go to our churches our synagogues mosques and temples to pray and try to find answers to national tragedies. . Now we turn to television and we stay with it as we go through another national event of pain and loss. And television is where we "got to know" Tim. That's why millions are hurting since yesterday's news bulletin.

Russert came across more genuine than the others. His smarts, his sort of rumpled look and as Barbara Walters said today, he wasn't pretty like so many anchors.

When he said it you believed it. We will never forget what he said about Florida before we ever heard of hanging chads in 2000. And he was quite brutal on May 6 of this year when he said it was over for Senator Clinton. Some were hurt. Some were angry Some didn't want to believe it. But that's the profession code of truth that he sought, faced and announced more than others.

Pat Buchanan, the Nixon warrior, TV commentator, author and former Presidential candidate himself was asked last night about the future of Meet The Press. Pat said it reminded him of when Thomas Jefferson went to Paris as our Ambassador, following Mr Ben Franklin . They asked Jefferson if he had come to replace Mr Franklin? Mr Jefferson said-Sir I have come to succeed him. No one will ever replace Mr Benjamin Franklin.

That can be said of Tim Russert. Yes he will have a successor. Life will go on. If its Sunday, its Meet The Press Meet the Press will continue. But we will remember Tim Russert. He was one of a kind who dared to be genuine---and from Buffalo.

Mayor Byron Brown ordered the flags on City Hall and city buildings to be lowered to half mast. All of us who "knew" Tim Russert through TV or personally, know that's what Tim would have wanted. He would have smiled--big--and those eyes would twinkle. It was all about Buffalo. And Mayor Brown, thanks! Thanks from The United States Conference of Mayors staff.