Inside the Beltway

Bush 1, Kerry 0

Louise R. Kilcullen knew the end was near, so the 86-year-old Alexandria woman, who died last Wednesday, made sure she voted by absentee ballot in the 2004 presidential election (we have it on good authority she cast her vote for President George W. Bush).

“She was kidding around … in the hospital that she wouldn’t be around on November 2, and she wanted to make sure she voted before she died,” the Rev. Dennis Kleinmann, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Old Town Alexandria, tells Inside the Beltway.

“I’m not sure about the [voting] guidelines if a person dies before [Election Day], but she did vote,” the priest reveals.

We also have it on good authority that Mrs. Kilcullen — a widow and loving mother of four children, seven grand-children and four great-grandchildren — requested that a “Bush-Cheney 2004” bumper sticker be attached to her coffin during her funeral services.

“It did not happen in church,” stresses Father Kleinmann, forbidding church and state to merge to such a degree in the hallowed sanctuary of Virginia’s oldest Catholic church.

“However,” the priest confirms, “when the coffin was pulled from the hearse at the cemetery and carried to the burial space, it did have a Bush bumper sticker on it.”

In fact, the amused Father Kleinmann tells us, the bumper sticker was glued to the end of the casket where he stood to recite the burial rites — “staring me in the face,” he laughs. “She was buried with the bumper sticker.”

Federal Election Commission spokesman Ian Stirton says the case of Mrs. Kilcullen is indeed “an unusual one,” and seemed relieved that the FEC has no say in such matters.

We’ll similarly leave it to a higher authority.

Pre-convention

A group of Democrats calling themselves “progressives” plan to use the Democratic National Convention to take back their party — and America.

On Tuesday, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean will lead a rally at Boston’s Royal Sonesta Hotel, followed by former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich and Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, who will discuss “kitchen table” economic issues facing everyday Americans.

Next on tap, Illinois Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy will outline this “united movement.”

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