Posted on 02/19/2004 12:13:31 AM PST by LdSentinal
Steve Neal, Chicago's premiere political columnist for decades, famous for his encyclopedic knowledge of history and political lore, for endlessly swapping stories with political junkies and for his books that ranged from a biography of Wendell Wilkie to the correspondence between Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Truman, died Wednesday at his Hinsdale home.
He was 54 and had been hospitalized overnight this week at Northwestern Hospital for a heart problem, his family said.
Hinsdale police said they responded to a “carbon monoxide alarm’’ Wednesday afternoon at the home.
Mr. Neal was among the city's most savvy political analysts, but unlike many political columnists, he also regularly broke news in his column. His trademark one-line leads would introduce what was a must-read for political insiders wanting to know who was running for what, who was stepping down and who was baking whom.
Mr. Neal was able to recall at a moment's notice arcane pieces of political history. And he was generous with his vast store of knowledge, happy to share it with young reporters new to the beat.
And while he enjoyed giving grief in print to politicians who deserved it, Mr. Neal never seemed to take it personally.
“It's fun,” he often said, when discussing politics.
Mr. Neal poured his deep knowledge of history and politics into his Chicago Sun-Times columns and several books.
His latest, Happy Days are Here Again, was about to be published. He was also the author of Dark Horse: A Biography of Wendell Wilkie, Rolling on the River: The Best of Steve Neal and Harry and Ike: The Partnership that Remade the Postwar World.
His death saddened government officials he had covered, as well as journalists with whom he worked in a career for both major Chicago newspapers.
Michael Cooke, Sun-Times editor in chief, said that “Steve Neal, first and foremost, was a good friend. A generous man. He loved his family, his newspaper and his city. I attended a dinner recently in Oregon when Steve was being honored by his old university and it was so lovely to see him surrounded by his family and friends.”
Mr. Neal had joined the Sun-Times after working as a White House correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.
“He always had a passion’’ for politics, said his wife, Susan Neal, who met him when both were freshmen at the University of Oregon.
It began when he was growing up in small Oregon towns, where his parents were teachers. As a teenager, he got into the habit of going to see visiting political candidates, collecting campaign buttons and listening to speeches.
But he started in journalism, covering sports for local papers. Sports also was his lifelong love.
Mr. Neal got a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia University in New York City and signed on at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Then, when the chance came to work for the Tribune in Chicago, where his grandfather was living, he jumped at it, his wife said.
For six months, he did general assignment in Chicago, then was transferred to the paper’s Washington bureau, where he covered the White House and President Ronald Reagan’s first term.
The Trib brought him back to Chicago, where he began a political column.
Fellow Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed, who is proud to say she was the one who brought Mr. Neal to the Sun-Times in 1987, recalled Wednesday that Mr. Neal had just showed her some promotional material for his new book Happy Days are Here Again/The 1932 Democratic Convention, the Emergence of FDR and How America Was Changed Forever.
“He was very tired with this book,’’ she said. “This book tuckered him out.’’
Sneed called Mr. Neal an “incredibly facile’’ talent. “He knew so much about American politics. . . . He was friends with everybody.’’
“He loved the older gentlemen of politics,’’ Sneed said. He loved the late Sun-Times columnist Irv Kupcinet and was very close to Eli Schulman of Eli’s the Place for Steak, where he often hung out for lunch.
Former Gov. Jim Edgar: “I think he’s one of the smartest people I knew around the process. He really knew government. He knew politics as well as anybody. It always amazed me because he wasn’t a native of Illinois and it’s easy to get caught up in Chicago-only politics. But he had as good a grasp on the whole state as he did Chicago, which I found refreshing.’’
House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) called Mr. Neal “one of the hardest working journalists in the Chicago political scene in the last two decades. He was a voice for tough campaigners and people who were interested in the day to day nuts and bolts of politics. That will be a voice that will be hard to replace.’’
Former colleague Bernie Judge, editor of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, a former Sun-Times editor and one of Neal's closest friends, said that “In addition to being a fine writer and a very fast writer, he was a very honorable man. And there's only about two or three people I'd say that about in my whole life. I think the coverage of the political scene in Chicago is going to suffer immensely from his loss. He could have been a national political correspondent for any newspaper in the country, but he wanted to stay here — he loved covering Chicago politics and the Sun-Times let him do that. He really loved this city.”
He also ‘’loved the paper. He loved his family. He loved his friends, but he had not been in good health,’’ said his wife.
“We will miss him terribly. He was just a great husband and father.’’
Mr. Neal also was “capable of fighting and making up with the strongest and best politicians of the time. We were all proud to be his colleagues,’’ he said.
According to Hinsdale police, who responded to a “carbon monoxide alarm,’ Mr. Neal was found at home Wednesday around 5:30 p.m.
Other survivors include his two daughters, Erin and Shannon, his parents : Ernest and Ellen Neal, from Salem, Ore., two brothers, Dan and Gary Neal; his in-laws, Bland and Beverly Simmons.
Other reports say he was found dead in his car. Put that together with carbon monoxide warning and it sounds like he eithered offed himself or passed out from heart problem with the motor running.
Who holds the record for posting most Steve Neal articles on FR, you or Billyboy. I don't recall many that were posted without a barf alert.
It's not nice to speak ill of the dead, but I'll just point out his death is probably a blow to the Borling campaign. Every election, like clock-work, Steve Neal has been in the habit of writing articles proclaiming every pro-choice Republican candidate the "best bet" to win November. He probably was all set to do a Borling piece and was just waiting until two weeks before the election.
My first wife "keeled over", two weeks before her 42nd birthday.
Another thing. Steve's columns were rife with accepting urban legends as fact when they were totally bogus. He did little if any fact checking. Other "liberals" do much better at the facts.
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