First Posted: 08-26-09 09:24 AM   |   Updated: 08-26-09 10:54 AM

Edward Kennedy, last of the Kennedy brothers and one of his generation’s foremost champions of the less fortunate, died last night with the “cause of his life” — universal health coverage — just out of his reach.

As he wrote in Newsweek just last month: “For four decades I have carried this cause–from the floor of the United States Senate to every part of this country. It has never been merely a question of policy; it goes to the heart of my belief in a just society. Now the issue has more meaning for me–and more urgency–than ever before. But it’s always been deeply personal, because the importance of health care has been a recurrent lesson throughout most of my 77 years.”

Nobody knows how the final vote will turn out in the Senate, where Republicans have so far put up a solid front of opposition, and conservative Democrats are dragging their feet on passage of the kind of far-reaching legislation Kennedy so ardently desired.

Kennedy’s vote had been considered as a critical one. But those hoping for a dramatic moment, like the one that took place last year, will no longer get their wish  Source

Courtesy Salon:

Madelyn Dunham, Barack Obama’s grandmother, died Monday, just one day before the nation goes to the polls to decide whether to elect her grandson president. Last month, the Democratic nominee had taken time off from the trail to visit her, expressing concern about her failing health.

In a statement, Obama and his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, said:

It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer. She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring. Our debt to her is beyond measure.

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