If you attend meetings of the Culver City Democratic Club for a few months, the feisty sounds and the deserved influence of the diminutive Lee Welinsky quickly become apparent.
You don’t even have to meet her. You will hear and see her without even trying. From her locked-in corner chair in the first row — the closer she is, the easier it is for her to participate — she is a force at every meeting, regardless of the month’s theme. She has an opinion. She was born to strenuously partake, not merely observe.
As usual, she was one of the first to arrive in the Rotunda Room at the Vets Auditorium for last night’s meeting.
She is a one-woman university course for young men and women who aspire to make politics an avocation in their lives.
About Those Other Guys
An officer in 3 political clubs, she is the Corresponding Secretary for Culver City Democrats.
Bashfulness and passivity are her enemies, although they will have to scootch over and clear room for conservatives and other Republicans of whom Ms. Welinsky is not fond.
Informed assertiveness is her favorite weapon.
Passionate down to her toenails, she is the archetype of an oldtime Democrat, the eyes-narrowing kind of warrior who determines her set of beliefs, and then marches out to the street to promote them, daring those of opposing views to disagree with her.
On these wonderfully active summer days, 80 is the magical doubleheader number in Ms. Welinsky’s thriving life:
Eighty is her age, and 80 doesn’t miss the entirety of her soaking-wet weight by more than a couple pounds.
Obama May Have a Debt
If Barack Obama wins the White House in November, he ought to send a box of chocolates to Ms. Welinsky in recognition of her inspirational volunteer work — telephoning voters, driving downtown to the Convention Center to devote 5 hours to signing up new immigrants for the Democratic Party, doing five times as much as ladies a fraction her age, a model trooper for her generation.
Arch-feminist that she has been for much of her busy, productive life, surprisingly perhaps, she was not out stumping for Hillary Rodham Clinton last winter.
Instead, she was drumming support for John Edwards, whom she said “would have made a terrific President.” His “Two Americas” theme, one kind of country for the rich, one for the impoverished, convinced Ms. Welinsky that Mr. Edwards was as dedicated as she is to improving conditions for the poor.
Global issues may be sexy, but being a vital member of the Culver City Democratic Club revolves around parochial topics, too. A longtime member of the 57-year-old club, better than her length of tenure, Ms. Welinsky would rather recall that she is in her second round with the club.
She has been back about a decade this time, after walking out in the ‘80s over an incident that still is as clear in her mind as if she were peering through a giant picture window. The night before a City Council election, a letter, purportedly from the Culver City Democratic Club, turned up bearing an endorsement of a Republican.
Campaigning as vigorously for Mr. Obama as she did for Mr. Edwards, how confident is Ms. Welinsky that her man will win the election?
She has been around too long to narrow her answer to a flat statement. “One never knows about an election,” she said. “You should know that.”
While American Jews historically have been unswervingly loyal to Dsemocratic candidates, more than a few have expressed concerns about Mr. Obama’s commitment to protection of Israel. Not Ms. Welinsky, though. A member of the board of Democrats for Israel, Ms. Welinsky travels east every year with her politically active son Howard and his wife for the convention of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “AIPAC says Obama is okay, and I am absolutely comfortable with that,” she says. “I understand where Obama comes from. Everybody thinks he is very liberal. But he isn’t. I have known that.”
All that remains is the voting.