Ron Rosenblith, Democratic political strategist and Hotline co-founder, dies at 75 Matt Schudel Ron Rosenblith, a political strategist who had a long association with John F. Kerry and other Democratic officeholders and helped launch the Hotline, one of the first sources of aggregated political news from around the country, died July 12 at his home in Durham, N.C. He was 75. The cause was respiratory failure, said a daughter, Gillet Rosenblith. She said doctors could not pinpoint a precise cause, but it appeared to be related to a lung transplant he had in 2016 as a result of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Mr. Rosenblith began working in political campaigns in 1968, when he was an organizer for the unsuccessful Democratic candidacy of Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy (Minn.). He went on to work on every Democratic presidential campaign through 2004. He also founded a fundraising firm geared toward small donors.