UD‘s old friend Scott Wallace suddenly has the edge (according to one poll – scroll down) in the contest for Pennsylvania’s First District. If you happen to be voting in that district, she’d like a word.

For over a decade, Scott was one of UD‘s closest friends (they’ve drifted apart over the years). Basically Scott had it all – in abundance – and UD was at the beginning of their friendship wary that he might be a snob, obnoxious, ostentatious… hyper-rich person stuff. He was tall and handsome and a multimillionaire and well-connected and he lived in a cool modern house (photographs of his grandfather – Roosevelt’s Vice-President, Henry Wallace – hung in the hallways) in one of DC’s best neighborhoods. His parents lived in a Georgetown mansion.

Scott turned out to be kind, unpretentious, serious, and morally engaged. He was the best of Washington: Informed, passionate about improving people’s lives, tireless in his commitment to good works.

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Unlike a lot of DC denizens, Scott was also an aesthete, with astoundingly impressive musical gifts. Like his mother, Scott played concert-level piano (his son has inherited this skill); to hear him play on the grand in his living room was a huge delight.

I remember lots of great dinners at his house, followed by charades; I remember travel together to local beaches and overseas. There were always long arguments about the politics of the day.

Scott was mild-mannered, generous, curious, funny. I think by nature he is rather quiet, rather observant. Not a natural back-slapper, like Joe Biden. But like Biden he radiates decency and modesty. He shares Biden’s political orientation; he is a natural democrat.

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More than once, I saw him be tight with a penny. His wealth is primarily for distribution to a suffering world. I rarely saw him spend much of it, except on a room in his basement full of electronic music technology. (His extended family is also musical: One of his brothers, a composer, bought Glen Tonche and turned it into a famous recording studio.)

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Anyway. I see that I’ve written a character sketch more than a political endorsement. But – put aside our president – character matters.

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UPDATE: Wow!