Sommer died in a trauma helicopter en route to UCLA after being hit by a car in an Agoura Hills parking lot last week. His mother Ann, 98, also suffered grave injuries. Sommer was most recently, with his wife Veronika, a Huffington Post contributor and visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies. Sommer began his career as a writer on the "Duffy's Tavern" radio show, was a news writer at KABC radio and TV in the late 1950s and early ’60s, and an editor on the first local newscast on Channel 7, Lew Irwin Reports, from 1957-1962, according to a friend's obit. Sommer was news director of KABC in the 1960s, won two Golden Mikes for commentaries and later became the station's first broadcast ombudsman. After journalism, Sommer became a speech writer and advisor in the presidential campaigns of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Edward Kennedy. Variety