People to watch in 2009: Sharon Cobb; and if you take her advice on lawmakers, you'll succeed; Republicans can bring forth needed progress

Despite being a former MSNBC correspondent, Sharon Cobb of Nashville gained even more lasting fame in 2005 when she caught Gov. Phil Bredesen on video inside a Border's bookstore) saying that he did not blame anyone who would die from his TennCare cuts.

She made an incredible CD around the quote and the cuts, which I also covered as a political columnist including at least five deaths. I could not complete the fight against the cuts due to pneumonia I developed in October of 2005 after interviewing then AG Alberto Gonzales in Washington D.C. in his office for Hispanic magazine. The pneumonia was later discovered to be leukemia that December.

Still, the day before that shocking diagnosis, I had traveled to Lawrenceburg and a clinic there where the director claimed at least eight deaths from the cuts, including victims among the working poor. A suicide also was claimed to be attached to the cuts because the person did not want to be a burden on his family with no health care coverage.

I could not confirm all these deaths before going into the hospital for the battle for my life. Death was very much in the air in the summer and fall of 2005.

Death also will follow cuts expected this year by the governor concerning TennCare. And Cobb will be there with an impressive claim: she says her CD which she personally handed and discussed with DNC Chairman Karl Dean and Sen. Russ Feingold sunk Bredesen nationally in being seriously considered for VP in 2008.

She is proud of the accomplishment. But she also is wary of being a target of the man who is not used to be denied his way due to his mega millions and lack of tolerance for differing opinions.

Still, Cobb, fights on, not only on TennCare but in getting a Megan's law passed in Tennessee. And she has reached some surprising conclusions about getting government to act for the people and who can be your allies.

Republicans.

Yes, Cobb, who consider herself from the Left, has found Republican lawmakers over the past few years most cooperative on finding common ground on important issues. I've found the same to be true. Sen. Diane Black and Sen. Jim Bryson fought the governor on the extent of his cuts in 2005. I really enjoyed working with them. Black is from Gallatin and Bryson -- who no longer is in the Senate -- was from Williamson County.

A Repulican House member from Hoenhwald who handles TennCare patient as a doctor led the fight in his chamber. Democrats supported the cuts by the Democratic governor. No wonder Barack Obama was nauseated at even the thought of Bredesen being on his winning ticket.

Since both houses now are controlled by Republicans, such open-mindedness on Cobb's part is most important. And she has found many of her liberal friends preferring to be shocked at her cooperation with the GOP instead of supporting legislative action.

And remember, it has been soon-to-be House Majority Leader Glen Casada of Williamson County who has constantly tried to get the sales tax lowered on food. Yet Bredesen and the Democrats always fight him.

Cobb also has important advice to citizens of this state: YOU CAN LOBBY LAWMAKERS ON YOUR OWN. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BELONG TO ANY ORGANIZATION OR HAVE A TITLE!

Legislators prefer that, Cobb says. That way, they don't consider you as out at Legislative Plaza with something to gain for yourself. And she says that lawmakers are roaming the halls looking for regular people to talk to. They'd prefer it to all the lobbyists that crowd in front of the House Speaker's office.

Trust me. That is the most disguting sight I've ever beheld in my life. It says everything about what is wrong with our country. I always felt like taking a shower after visiting Legislative Plaza.

I really hate the idea of returning to the statehouse after three years absence. But the stakes are too high. I must write for people of the state, not the politicians and lobbyists -- something that infects too much of political writing.

Cobb is definitely a person to watch this year. You'll find that her agenda is simply about justice and doing the right thing. And it is representative of what We the People can do.

As Nelson Mandela once said:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

"It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do.

"It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Closer to home, the late Bobby Kennedy put it this way:

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope... and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

And perhaps Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said it best in his address of Dec. 5, 1967:

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the vitriolic words and violent actions of the 'bad' people — but the appalling silence and indifference of the 'good' people. Our generation will have to repent, not only for the words and actions of the children of darkness, but also for the fears and apathy of the children of light."

So fear not, chidren of the light. Start the ripple effect and believe in the power of you as a citizen to make a better community, state and nation.

Answer the call and act.