I got an email today from my friend Tim Rosales letting me know that Marcia Tookey passed away.

I didn’t know Marcia Tookey for the entire time she was active in politics. You see, by the late date of my birth in 1970 she was already an established volunteer in Los Angeles, during the glory days. She was a tireless organizer of precincts, and more important she had a working knowledge of the county of LA as a whole, almost quite literally precinct by precinct. She knew where the phone banks could be found, where you couldn’t walk, and who was reliable or not. She was one of the handfull of people who remembered the organizational methods of the previous years, and was willing to teach them. Her lessons made a huge difference in my professional life.

Marcia knew the details that made the difference between a GOTV program that works and one that doesn’t. In 2000 I was field director for victory 2000 and (before campaign finance "reform") we had established some two dozen staffed local offices in LA for various party programs, including the traditional election day push. Like a fool, I had centralized the printing of the election day GOTV targets in my office, and so we had an operation going for some 48 hours printing target voters and assembling quite literally thousands of precinct kits. As we neared the end Marcia swept in, looked at them, said (and I quote) "You silly little man this will never do. You’ll have to print them again tonight and I’ll stay here to make sure you do it right this time." It was a long night and next day, but she was right – there is nothing worse than being on the ground on election day and having the material you are working with fouled up.

The last time I saw Marcia was 2001 when she came over for dinner and martinis. I spoke to her a few times after that. Like happens more than I would like, I assume everyone is immortal and I’m going to catch up with them again later. That rarely proves to be the case. Today I would pay a tidy sum to take her out to dinner one more time. Yesterday she was a name on a list I was going to get around to giving a call to when the election was over.

If I were to give her a eulogy it would be the same one I’d want for myself (with changes, from Charles Murphy):

Marica Tookey is a straight organization person. She believes in party government; she does not indulge in cant and hypocrisy and she is never afraid to say exactly what she thinks. She is a believer in thorough political organization and all-the-year-around work, and she holds to the doctrine that, in making appointments to office, party workers should be preferred if they are fitted to perform the duties of the office. Marcia is one of the veteran leaders of the organization; she has always been faithful and reliable, and she has performed valuable services for the Republican Party.

Rest in peace, Marcia… the boys ran the GOTV precincts right this time.

DDD

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.