A lot of famous journalists and politicians have been weighing in on the death of Tim Russert, but lost in this media fest of mourning are the voices of those who made him famous.

That would be his millions of viewers — most of them regular Americans, many of them sharing Russert's working-class roots. To many of them, Russert was one of their own.

"I met Timmy many, many years ago," John Gavner said in a story in The Buffalo News. "I worked on garbage truck ...

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