If you'll indulge for one moment, I just wanted to note the passing over the weekend of one of the more amazing men I've ever had a chance to meet. In my previous life I spent 12-years running around Milwaukee, Wis. trying to make sense of the wonderful political scene out there. Because I was a kid from Jersey (the state where their version of the Washington Monument Syndrome involves shutting down Atlantic City's casinos rather than treasured public landmarks) I was initially stunned at how much of Wisconsin's politics were so deeply rooted in actual intellectual discourse. Voters out there would split their tickets at a moment's notice and begged often- willing politicians to scrap with meaty issues rather than each other. The end result was a steady stream of thoughtful non-conformists and dreamers in office, like Senators Bill Proxmire and Russ Feingold, Mayor John Norquist, Gov. Tommy Thompson, and many others, from all political parties. Voters actually seemed to remember what they learned in civics class and set the bar high for their elected officials.

I look back on my time there with nostalgia because here in New York, of course, we don't really do the whole discourse thing. Hacks pretty much run the show and the fewer questions that are asked, the better it is for the entire Hack movement to thrive. I've been thinking a lot about this since Saturday when I heard that former Milwaukee Mayor Frank Zeidler passed away at the age of 93. A three-term Socialist mayor, who even ran for president on the Socialist ticket in 1976, Zeidler was a man of profound ideas, integrity, and principle. He was so committed to government transparency that he began his days at City Hall by having reporters open his mail for him. He loved rigorous debate without making it personal. He certainly had no shortage of folks who disagreed with his positions on issues, but I never heard anyone utter a bad word about the guy.

By the time I got to know him, he was out of office for a long time. He lived a few blocks from me on Milwaukee's north side, and was the kind of guy who wrote a letter to the editor of some publication or other just about every day of the week. He believed very strongly that ideas mattered and that the greatest gift that America offered its citizens was the right to discuss those issues in the public square. Once he got caught writing opinion pieces under another identity. He had to, because he was offering a point-counterpoint debate where he was writing both sides and it would have looked silly if he was debating himself.

What an amazing mind. He will be missed.