<p>Columnist Roger Simon, who for 40 years covered every presidential election, joked that he needed to be buried in his hometown of Chicago, despite living just outside Washington, D.C., for half his life. </p><p>That way, he would say, he could still vote in Chicago elections since dead people can vote<b>.</b></p><p>Simon was a beloved columnist for a number of publications, including the Chicago Sun-Times and Politico, where he was the chief political columnist. He was known for writing about the dramatics of politics with engaging humor and wit, making complex topics understandable for readers.</p><p>On Thursday, after a short bout of pneumonia, Simon died at 78.</p><p>His wife of nearly 50 years, fellow journalist and longtime Washington Post copy editor Marcia Kramer Simon, said he wanted to be buried in Chicago because he was “Chicago to his core.”</p><p>“He loved Chicago and Chicago loved him back,” Kramer Simon said.</p><p>Roger Simon was born in Chicago on March 29, 1948. His father was a truck driver, and his mother was a homemaker.</p><p>Simon cobbled together student loans and scholarships to attend the University of Illinois, where he pursued a love of journalism at the student newspaper.</p><p>That’s where he met his future wife as a sophomore. At the time, he was dating someone he'd known from high school, but they broke up, his friendship with Marcia blossomed into something more. </p><p>Their first date was on her 19th birthday, she said.</p><p>They would be together for the next 58 years.</p><p>The couple later worked together at the Sun-Times. Simon was an investigative reporter before becoming a columnist in 1975. He dove headfirst into thorny political issues like spousal abuse and racism and made powerful figures, like then-Gov. James Thompson, his targets.</p><p>He traveled the world reporting, including covering apartheid in South Africa.</p><p>Simon’s work made a visible impact and changed lives in Chicago. His coverage of spousal abuse led the Chicago Police Department to change its classification of such incidents from domestic disturbances to abuse. </p><p>“He changed lives with what he wrote,” Kramer Simon said. “He had a way with words that people couldn’t touch.”</p><p>After being assigned to cover the 1976 presidential election for the Sun-Times, Simon would maintain that assignment for the next 40 years.</p><p>He wrote popular books on presidential campaigns, most recently on the 2012 presidential race, published in 2013, entitled "Reckoning: Campaign 2012 and the Battle for the Soul of America<i>."</i></p><p>He stayed with the Sun-Times, writing columns until his departure in 1984 after Rupert Murdoch bought the paper. Many columns at the Sun-Times were soon after published in the book, ‘Simon Says: The Best of Roger Simon.”</p><p>Simon and his wife then moved to D.C., where he lived the rest of his life. He continued writing for the Baltimore Sun as a columnist and at Politico.</p><p>But Kramer Simon said he always loved being a columnist at the Sun-Times, a paper he called a “scrappy underdog.”</p><p>“Writing for the Sun-Times, he always said that was the best job he ever had,” she recalled.</p><p>Simon won more than a dozen first-place awards for writing and reporting, and twice won the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award for Commentary.</p><p>For over 25 years, his columns were syndicated by Creators Syndicate, where he landed in the homes of thousands of newspaper readers around the world.</p><p>In his <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/2017/2/1/18351433/roger-simon-a-majority-of-one-walks-away-from-his-keyboard" target="_blank" >final column, </a>written for Politico in 2017 and also published by the Sun-Times, he announced his retirement, writing, “I have also been flooded — really, you can read them — with messages on Facebook and Twitter asking me not to retire. Not now. Not, I’m told, when America 'needs' me.</p><p>"I know, I know. It is preposterous. It is laughable. But not to some. For some, I have been the friend they have never met for more than 40 years.”</p><p>Simon wrote that he wanted to travel the world with his wife following retirement. But for years, he struggled with his health, eventually contracting sepsis that led to a double leg amputation in 2009</p><p>But he didn’t like to focus on his health problems.</p><p>After announcing his retirement, Simon returned to the Sun-Times as a weekly columnist. He continued writing on politics and the Donald Trump presidency until 2018.</p><p>He loved reading mysteries and science fiction, and had a “modest collection” of art, his wife said. Simon enjoyed traveling before his illnesses and was a Beatles fan. He enjoyed watching television shows like “This Old House,” picking up knowledge — in theory — along the way.</p><p>“He worked with his mind, not his hands,” Kramer Simon said.</p><p>Life with Simon, she said, was stable and steady. He was kind and thoughtful.</p><p>She remembers being drawn to Simon as a friend, and eventual partner, nearly 60 years ago by his sense of humor.</p><p>“I thought he was hilarious with tremendous wit,” she said. “I miss him terribly.”</p><p>Simon’s wish to return to Chicago will be fulfilled with a private burial. He is survived by his wife of 49 years and his sister Lynne Copp.</p><div class="RelatedList Enhancement" data-module data-align-center>
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<a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/2017/2/1/18351433/roger-simon-a-majority-of-one-walks-away-from-his-keyboard" target="_blank" >Roger Simon’s final column, published in 2017</a>
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<p></p><h2><a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/2015/6/30/18604393/roger-simon-america-s-glorious-failures" target="_blank" >READ MORE</a></h2><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="An image from the Chicago Sun-Times' July 4, 1976, edition showing a portion of Roger Simon's column headlined "America's most glorious failures." One of his best-known columns, it was republished several times. " srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/bd4eabe/2147483647/strip/true/crop/641×360+394+0/resize/490×275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F05%2F2d%2F50e2736142cb89d4d30c5e2f49e4%2Fscreenshot-2026-09-11-at-9-56-16-am.png 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2c5a9e0/2147483647/strip/true/crop/641×360+394+0/resize/980×550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F05%2F2d%2F50e2736142cb89d4d30c5e2f49e4%2Fscreenshot-2026-09-11-at-9-56-16-am.png 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>This column that ran in the Chicago Sun-Times on July 4, 1976, was one of Roger Simon’s best-known columns. It was republished several times. <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/2015/6/30/18604393/roger-simon-america-s-glorious-failures" target="_blank" >Click here to read it.</a><br></p></figcaption></div>
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Roger Simon, beloved former Sun-Times columnist, has died at 78 2026
IUSTITIA.BG – Investigations 2009-2026 2026-09-12 21:33:22
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