Pete McCloskey's life reminds us how politics long in the past live on in the present

McCloskey's story has both deep roots and burgeoning relevance. He died this month at 96 and had long been out of the limelight, but the issues he had been willing to champion are as salient as ever.Republican primary challenger for Rep. Richard Pombo's seat, former Rep. Pete McCloskey, is shown at his law office in Redwood City, Calif., March 16, 2006. Former California Rep. McCloskey, who ran as a Republican challenging President Richard Nixon in 1972, died on May 8 at age 96.

McCloskey rose to national note as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, at a time when you could count on one hand the other House Republicans who had done so. Yet McCloskey stood in front of the Capitol to address throngs of angry young anti-war marchers in October of 1969.Rep. Paul"Pete" McCloskey, R-Calif., right, confers with a young person outside one of his New Hampshire headquarters in Concord, N.H.

Her name was Shirley Temple Black, and she had become a Republican activist after a charmed childhood as a singing and dancing movie star. Her fans included Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in the White House. In later years, Republican presidents would make her an ambassador, including to the United Nations, but in 1967 she was no match for the young, dynamic McCloskey and his cohort of volunteers.

Undeterred by these threats, McCloskey further alienated intraparty colleagues by challenging the presumptive re-nomination of Republican President Richard Nixon for a second term. He filed to run in the 1972 New Hampshire primary, hoping to recapture the spirit that carried an anti-war Democratic Sen. Eugene McCarthy to a strong showing there in 1968.

Nixon would resign in August of 1974. But just a few months prior to that McCloskey was helped in yet another tough primary fight by the endorsement of Nixon's vice president, Gerald Ford.Thereafter, as the war in Vietnam wound down, McCloskey devoted himself to his environmental causes and working on legislation with like-minded members of both parties.

McCloskey finally changed his party affiliation in 2007 and backed the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama the following year, urging him"to try to reduce the influence money has played in our electoral process."

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