Carol Shea-Porter

A Member of the Posse of Reformers

Congresswoman-elect set her own terms. No one thought had a shot. The Democratic Party chairman didn't know her name. And then …

DOVER, N.H. — Someday, some brainy PhD student will probably examine the unlikely 2006 campaign of New Hampshire's first elected congresswoman and identify its lessons something like this:

• Ignore pollsters and pundits. Real people are the real experts.
• The best focus group is coffee with six smart friends.
• Listen carefully, even in a gathering of only three people.
• Never underestimate the tenacity of a determined network of middle-aged volunteers, most of them women.
• Always play nice and always send thank-you notes.

Indeed, no sooner did she defeat Republican incumbent Jeb Bradley on Nov. 7 than Democrat Carol Shea-Porter fired off an e-mail expressing gratitude to a particularly devoted campaign worker. A response immediately flashed back from the constituent in Shea-Porter's new southern New Hampshire district: "That's very nice. But I did it for my country."

Shea-Porter, 53, said her reason had been much the same when she took on what most analysts assumed would be a losing battle. Her goal, she said, was to represent the "bottom 99%" in her state and her country — those Americans who do not worry about the vagaries of the stock market or whether they can afford a bigger yacht, but "whether they will have pizza money for their family on a Friday night."

The former social worker and community-college politics teacher takes her place in a 53-member freshman congressional class that Shea-Porter describes as a "posse of reformers." In a House election when the average winning campaign cost about $1 million, she ran hers for $206,000. Campaign manager Sue Mayer, a volunteer, is a medieval historian.

Shea-Porter ran all of two TV ads. One featured her 82-year-old mother, a rock-solid New Hampshire Republican. Rather than renting expensive offices, the campaign relied on supporters who provided space in their homes.

Shea-Porter said she realized things were getting bad at her house when the stove turned into a campaign literature storage unit.

"I thought, What have I done to my family?" said Shea-Porter, the mother of a college-age daughter and a son in high school. Her husband, Gene, works for the federal government.

She received little attention from the national Democratic Party. The day after the election, which she won with 52% of the vote, party Chairman Howard Dean could not remember all of her last name, though he knew it was hyphenated.

Dean praised Shea-Porter's win as "an entirely grass-roots effort without support from the party, including us."

Her opponent painted her as a wild-eyed liberal whose sole issue was opposition to the Iraq war. Shea-Porter made no secret of her disapproval of the U.S. presence in Iraq — a position that she said put her in the mainstream of American thinking. She once was ousted from an appearance by President Bush in nearby Portsmouth; she was wearing a T-shirt that read "Turn Your Back on Bush."

But Shea-Porter stressed that her objection to the war was only part of what compelled her to challenge Bradley. She said of her desire to end the Iraq war,

It is absolutely upfront and central. But there is also the deficit, healthcare, the economy and the danger of privatization of Social Security.

The constant financial struggle of everyday Americans is a perpetual theme that she hears, Shea-Porter said. Just before the election, she and Mayer, her campaign manager, made a nighttime run to the mall because neither of them had anything left to wear, and their saleswoman turned out to be a teacher who made ends meet for her family by working a second job in retail. Shea-Porter says,

People like that get where this country is going economically. They get what is happening to the price of gas, the price of cereal, the price of milk. The people are way ahead of the politicians on this one.

In New Hampshire, Shea-Porter worked on the 2004 Democratic presidential campaign of Gen. Wesley K. Clark. After Clark pulled out, she and Mayer took it upon themselves to start watching Bradley more closely.

They began attending his New Hampshire town meetings, challenging him on his defense of the Iraq war and his support for Social Security privatization. As active members of a political discussion group, both women agreed that the Democrats needed to find someone to run against Bradley.

But Shea-Porter put partisan politics aside to make two lengthy visits to the Gulf Coast area as a Red Cross volunteer after Hurricane Katrina, sleeping in a shelter at night, handing out food and water bottles by day. Said Shea-Porter: "There's no way to describe what the government did not do."

Her disgust with government inaction before and after the hurricane cemented her decision to run for office.

Bradley also visited the devastated areas. "The difference was, he never talked about it again," she said. "And I could not stop talking about it. Not only did the government abandon people in the Gulf Coast, they abandoned people in every community in America."

With no high-priced consultants, her campaign relied on what George Washington University political sociologist Elizabeth Sherman called a "net roots" combination of networking and grass-roots politics.

This is a real payoff for women's social and political networks. It has been building for a long time — maybe 15 or 20 years. Women used to complain about the old boys' network. But the time has come now where women recognize the force of their own connections.

In the long year of her campaign, Shea-Porter said, she and Mayer "completely trusted" her loose but loyal army of supporters to carry her message of reform. She paid no attention to polls, even when days before the election, prognosticators pronounced her defeat a done deal.

"I always thought I would win, and that if I did, that would be a wonderful thing," she said. "And if I lost, I would go home and introduce myself to my husband and my dog."

Her family, she said, helped her keep a sense of perspective throughout the race.

"Having teenagers is the secret," she said. "Teenagers will always remind you that you are still the person who should clean the sink. They are not awed by me. I am not awed by me. I haven't been awed by me for the last 53 years, and I don't plan to start getting awed now that I'm going to Washington."

By Elizabeth Mehren, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 26, 2006

IRS Still Persecuting Pasadena Church?

This is an update on my previous post.

The IRS still questions a Pasadena church's tax-exempt status after an antiwar speech before the 2004 election that some saw as politicking.

The sermon, delivered Oct. 31, 2004, by the Rev. George F. Regas, was framed as a debate involving Jesus, President Bush and his Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts.

In September, the church announced that it would not comply with an IRS summons demanding that All Saints turn over materials with political references, such as sermons and newsletters, produced during the 2004 election year. The current rector, the Rev. Ed Bacon, did not obey a summons that ordered him to testify before IRS investigators.

The church continues to set a defiant tone. On Sunday, All Saints will sponsor a conference called "The War, the Pulpit and the Right to Preach." It will include workshops on conflict resolution, tax law and "Prophetic Traditions and Free Speech." Regas and Bacon are scheduled to speak.

But did Regas' speech violate federal laws? The answer, mostly likely to come from the courts, hinges on how one defines campaigning and interprets his remarks.

An extended excerpt from the sermon published by the Los Angeles Times yesterday, appears below. It represents about a third of the text. The complete address can be found here.

Good people of profound faith will be for either George Bush or John Kerry for reasons deeply rooted in their faith. I want you to hear me on this. Yet I want to say as clearly as I can how I see Jesus impacting your vote and mine. Both Sen. Kerry and President Bush are devout Christians — one a Roman Catholic and the other a Methodist.

Against the teachings of Jesus, listen in as Kerry and Bush debate three hugely important issues this morning: ending war and violence, eliminating poverty and holding tenaciously to hope.

Sen. Kerry and President Bush are engaged in a titanic battle for the White House. Central to their race for the presidency is the quest for peace. How deeply the world longs for peace. President Bush has led us into war with Iraq as a response to terrorism.

Yet I believe Jesus would say to Bush and Kerry:

War is itself the most extreme form of terrorism. President Bush, you have not made dramatically clear what have been the human consequences of the war in Iraq.

More than 1,100 U.S. soldiers dead, 8,000 wounded — some disabled for life — and now the latest figures say 100,000 Iraqi fighters, women and children are dead. Oh, the cost of your war.

Your fundamental premise for the massive violence of this war is that it is the proper response to the terrorist attack that took place Sept. 11, 2001. But remember: The killing of innocent people to achieve some desired goal is morally repudiated by anyone claiming to follow me as their savior and guide.

Jesus, looking at the United States, the most powerful nation in the history of civilization, disavows any path that affirms grief must lead to war; Jesus refuses to accept the violence of war as the necessary consequences of our tragic losses on Sept. 11.

Maybe you are calling Jesus naive, but he points us to the truest reality in the universe:

Mercy brings mercy and revenge brings revenge. Tragically, your world refuses to learn this truth even after so many bitter experiences in every part of the world. Mercy brings mercy. Revenge brings revenge.

How Jesus mourns the deaths of those 3,000 people killed on Sept. 11. But Jesus also mourns the death, devastation and loss in Afghanistan and Iraq and Sudan and Israel/Palestine and in so many other parts of the world. They too are part of God's precious human family.

Jesus would say to us:

Yes, mourn the deaths of those closest to you who have died; yet it is troublesome that you in America could get so caught up in the tragedy of Sept. 11 without ever noticing all my children who have been blown apart by this war, and the 30,000 children under 5 years of age across the globe who die every day of malnutrition and hunger. My heart can hardly bear it.

Jesus confronts both Sen. Kerry and President Bush:

I will tell you what I think of your war. The sin at the heart of this war against Iraq is your belief that an American life is of more value than an Iraqi life. That an American child is more precious than an Iraqi baby.
God loathes war. At the time of the trauma of Sept. 11 you did not have to declare war. You could have said to the American people and the world: 'We will respond but not in kind. We will not seek to avenge the death of innocent Americans by the death of innocent victims elsewhere, lest we become what we abhor.'

Jesus continues:

Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster. It will take years for the widely felt hostility in Iraq and around the world to ebb. The consequences of arrogance, accompanied by certitude that the world's most powerful military can cure all ills, should be burned into America's memory forever.

President Bush, Sen. Kerry, will you save us from all this suffering? But God's only hands are yours and all who call upon my name. In the midst of great suffering, I call out to you: 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.'

Jesus turns to President Bush again with deep sadness.

Is what I hear really true? Do you really mean that you want to end a decade-old ban on developing nuclear battlefield weapons, as well as endorsing the creation of a nuclear 'bunker-blaster' bomb? Are you really going to resume nuclear testing? That is sheer insanity.

This only encourages nations to build their nuclear arsenal in defense against you. This is morally indefensible.

Jesus grows more insistent.

The development of battlefield nuclear weapons and threatening their use against 'rogue' nations and willing to strike first is a dangerous change of policy. Talk of winnable nuclear war is the greatest illusion. I am indignant when I hear people in your government saying a nuclear war could end for anyone as a victory.

Everything I know about Jesus would have him uttering those words. From my own study, prayer, reflection and dialogue, I say that nuclear war is the enemy. Anyone who can avoid seeing the horror of that has lost his soul. The political reality that nuclear war still remains an option for America and other countries is the paramount horror of modern existence.

The nuclear bomb is the most outright evil thing that human beings ever created.

What does it say about the moral values of a nation that puts its security in nuclear weapons that are morally outrageous? I believe that Jesus calls us to be nuclear abolitionists through the political process. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."

When you go to the polls on Nov. 2, vote all your values. Jesus places on your heart this question: Who is to be trusted as the world's chief peacemaker?

Show me, gentle reader, where in this text is there a recommendation for a particular candidate?

A Crowded Sewer

O.J. Sewer Leads Right to Murdoch by Tim Rutten

A review of recent history:

This week the Fox television network announced that it would air a two-part interview with O.J. Simpson as part of the publicity campaign promoting a new book, "If I Did It," in which he offers a hypothetical account of how he might have killed his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman outside her Brentwood condominium in 1994.

Simpson was acquitted on murder charges but was subsequently held civilly liable for both deaths and ordered to pay an as-yet-uncollected $33.5-million judgment to the victims' families.

"If I Did It" is the product of the former football star's collaboration with an unnamed ghost writer and will be published at the end of this month by ReganBooks, the euphonious shock-and-schlock imprint Judith Regan runs for the HarperCollins publishing house. Fox, ReganBooks and HarperCollins all have something important in common: They're owned by the predatory Australian-born media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, who has devoted his life to making money by making sure that news and entertainment are as coarse and vulgar as can be imagined in as many places as possible.

In fact, if there is a single compelling argument for restrictive immigration policies, Murdoch is it. It is one of history's inexplicable perversities that this avaricious antipodean has been welcomed into this country while honest Mexican workingmen are walled out.

Part of Murdoch's dark genius is that he never settles for having things both ways when he can have them every way there's a buck to be made. Thus, while Regan and various Fox broadcasting spokesmen were shrilly defending the book and interview, a couple of the stars on Murdoch's cable news network were in full-throated denunciation mode.

Fox News' biggest draw, Bill O'Reilly, called the project "simply indefensible and a low point in American culture," then went on to note piously, "For the record, Fox Broadcasting has nothing to do with the Fox News Channel."

Nothing, except for the fact that both are personally run by the same Murdoch functionary, Roger Ailes.

Meanwhile, Fox News' Geraldo Rivera had this to say about the book and interview:

I think it's disgusting. I think he's a murdering liar. I think he's demonstrating that he made a fool of the jury in Los Angeles and all of the black community across the country that supported him. This sleazy, low-down murdering dog who killed his ex-wife, the mother of his children as they slept upstairs…. I think it really is the most appalling thing I've ever seen.

Pretty strong stuff, especially when it comes from a guy with the gag reflex of a turkey buzzard.

So let's see here … Judith Regan publishes Simpson's book. To whet the buying public's appetite for it, Regan herself interviews Simpson and the results are aired on Fox Broadcasting during the sweeps week, which is critical to the network's advertising. To build buzz and controversy, which means audience, the commentators on Fox News denounce the whole thing as a cultural low point, something they'd recognize more easily than most. Keep in mind that both networks report to Ailes, who once created a talk show for Regan. Ailes, Regan, O'Reilly and Rivera all work for Murdoch, who ultimately profits from both the outrage and the outraged.

This is the sort of thing that keeps conspiracy theorists up at night, but there's a more practical result. According to publishing sources, the first printing of "If I Did It" is 400,000 copies, and all this week advance orders on the Amazon.com list soared.

Everybody in this whole unsavory arrangement is satisfied except Regan, who mysteriously seems taken aback by criticism of her decision to publish this gruesome book. As she told the New York Times on Thursday, "The book is his confession. I would have no interest in publishing anything but that." However, as Edward Wyatt reported Friday, Simpson inconveniently refused to confess and "did not say directly in the book or the interview that he killed" his ex-wife or Goldman. "Rather, he spoke about the murders in the hypothetical sense, a stance that admits nothing and could be viewed as a denial."

Regan, however, doesn't believe any of that matters because … come on, guess … and, no, it's not because she's in rehab — it's because she's a victim herself! That's right, domestic abuse. In a rambling, semi-hysterical statement distributed Friday, Regan said she was unsurprised by Simpson's acquittal because she was disbelieved when battered by her husband more than 20 years ago. According to the publisher, he was "tall, dark and handsome. A great athlete. A brilliant mind. He was even a doctor, with an M.D. after his name and a degree that came with an oath: 'First do no harm.' He was one of the brightest men I'd ever met. And he could charm anyone. He charmed me. We had a child. And then he knocked me out, with a blow to my head, and sent me to the hospital. He manipulated, lied and broke my heart."

Simpson's acquittal, Regan insisted, was "a seminal moment in American history" and, recalling her own experience going to confession as a Catholic schoolgirl, said that she "made the decision to publish this book and to sit face to face with the killer, because I wanted him, and the men who broke my heart and your hearts, to tell the truth, to confess their sins, to do penance and to amend their lives. Amen."

Really.

Like shame, the indispensability of privacy is one of the things that's often hard to recall these days. But even now, sacramental confession is done in private and held as an inviolable confidence. Priests give absolution, not multimillion-dollar advances, and they don't plan on profiting from the exercise.

Regan says that when she "sat face to face with the killer, I wanted him to confess, to release us all from the wound of the conviction that was lost on that fall day in October of 1995.

"For the girl who was left in the gutter, I wanted to make it right."

The only gutter at issue here is the one where Judith Regan does business and, when you consider all the help she's getting from the rest of Rupert Murdoch's minions, it's a very crowded sewer.

Who Was Jim Sterkel?

Jim Sterkel played for USC for two seasons in the 1950s, but the impression he left as a player was nothing compared with the impression he left as a friend. As a tribute to his former college roommate, a USC donor gave $5 million to have the court at the Galen Center bear his friend’s name.

Floored!