Above: Click to play the interview with Congresswoman Susan Davis

I met Susan Davis decades ago when she was the first KPBS Coordinator of Volunteers –- and she was hugely successful organizing the station’s very first group of San Diegans who wanted to help public broadcasting flourish.  She was a highly educated wife of a successful psychiatrist and the mother of two young boys.  We had a great deal in common.

But while I made my life’s work KPBS, Susan moved into elective office – as a school board trustee, a State Assemblywoman, and then into Congress.  I’ve watched her grow as a politician and become more involved, more focused, and much more articulate.  In her maturity, she’s attained a higher level of mastery in her selected profession.   On this second night of the Democratic National Convention, this interview effectively captured her reaction to what was happening as history was being made.

Above: Click to view the Bob Filner interview

Bob Filner is consistently proud of being a civil rights advocate.  He is always willing to reminisce about being thrown in jail in the deep South of the 1960’s.  As the story goes, he and a group of other young men from the New York area boarded a bus for Alabama to join a protest demonstration against Jim Crow laws. He was appalled by local regulations that segregated blacks in schools, housing, transportation, and even outlawing them from drinking from public water fountains where whites quenched their thirst.

Once there, he found a tough police environment not sympathetic to the protesters.  In short, some rough stuff resulted and Filner was taken into custody.  Now, almost half a century later, after years as a San Diego State University history professor, an elected school board member, a San Diego City Councilmember and a Congressman, Filner sees the ultimate satisfaction at hand.  His support of Barack Obama goes deep, as deep as that Southern town where he was arrested.

But what happens if Obama loses?  I didn’t ask that question during my sneak-away-to-an-empty room interview with Filner at the Democratic National Convention.  But KPBS Production Manager Kurt Kohnen who was holding the microphone did.  The question and the answer were the most telling part of our conversation.