A. Robert Kaufman, as he was formally known in all his quixotic political campaigns over the last several decades, sits in a small sunlit room in an assisted living facility in Baltimore County and puts a few words together pretty well.
“I’ve had arguments with all sorts of people, everybody,” he says.
But then the thought drifts away. The language continues, but the idea does not. The words keep coming, the way they always have, but they turn into something indecipherable, something along the fringes of English, and the thought gets lost down some dark and fathomless alley.
Yes, he’s had arguments with all sorts of people over the years. He’s been the guy out there on the political fringes, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but always courageous and uncompromising.
In the ancient photographs, Kaufman’s the kid marching in the picket line outside the old Ford’s Theater, demanding that black people have the right to be seated in the same places as whites. And he’s the one marching against war. Which war? Whattaya got, pal? He’s fought against all of ’em, from Vietnam to Iraq. And he’s the one declaring the idiocy of American drug policy that routinely puts people in prison instead of treatment.
These were all Kaufman arguments through the years. But now he’s left in an endless debate with himself. He sits there, looking quite healthy for a fellow 77 years old, his beard trim, his weight down.
But appearances are deceptive. Three years ago, he was stabbed in the neck and beaten badly by a drug-addicted tenant in the West Baltimore apartment building Kaufman lived in and owned. From his hospital bed, Kaufman immediately declared two things: This never would have happened if his attacker had been able to get proper care for his addiction; and, never mind that Kaufman had nearly been killed, he was still campaigning for the U.S. Senate.
He was being braver than he had any right to be. In the aftermath of the attack, he needed a new kidney. He’s been on dialysis for the last few years. Then, four months ago, he suffered a major stroke that put him into the Levindale Nursing Home for a month and then landed him here, at Arden Courts Assisted Living.
“Pretty nice place, Bob,” a visitor told him the other day.
“Yes,” Kaufman said. “Nice.”
He does fine in short spurts. But he was never about simplicity. He was about texture, about examining the American political process in all its dank, secret places to find the stuff behind the platitudes.
He wanted to know why so many working people were having such a tough economic time while others had more than they’d need for 15 lifetimes. He wanted to talk about corporate greed, about social justice, about America abusing its vast military muscle.
Naturally, he was branded — and the brand stuck. He was a commie, he was a socialist. We like to put people into shorthand niches; it’s easier than subjecting ourselves to actual thought. Kaufman sloughed it off. He took verbal abuse, and sometimes he took physical abuse.
And he kept alive, through so many political campaigns, and so many marches, and so many late-night meetings, the spirit of America talking things out. For those paying attention, he offered a lesson: Speak your mind, or forever hate yourself for holding back. And do it in a way that debates the concept itself and doesn’t tear apart those who might disagree.
We need people like this. They keep alive the marketplace of ideas. Admire those ideas or shun them, Kaufman made you think about them. He wasn’t a name-caller. He didn’t slander his opponents. And he wasn’t one of those, on the airwaves or the Web sites, who never have the guts to identify themselves.
He stood by his convictions, and he offered them in a spirit of reasonableness and civility. He still does. But the words are tougher for him to find now.
We all grow older, and if we grow old enough, nature begins to bully us. But some people, like Bob Kaufman, can look back on lives well spent, lives where they spoke their minds, knowing that honest and open debate is the very heartbeat of America.
In his sunlit little room, Kaufman should enjoy peace of mind. He’s stood by his beliefs, and sometimes suffered for them, and that’s been okay with him. He’s had his say. It’s what America offers us all, and some make the most of it.
