NH-01: Fighting Dem Carol Shea-Porter Live Blogging

[trillian]

NH-01: Fighting Dem Carol Shea-Porter Live Blogging from the Granite State at Kos


ANNOUNCEMENT: This diary is a new departure for Fighting Dems. Carol Shea-Porter is not a vet, but we are expanding our horizons to include the immediate relatives of military families - parents, spouses, children. Those candidates who have been in service families as army brats, spouses or who have children who serve or have served in the military. See the list at the end of the Diary.

Carol will be our first non-vet military family Fighting Dem to be spotlighted by Fighting-Dems.com. Carol will be live blogging with us today. A special essay on General Clark and Carol was written especially for this occasion by the noted writer, Bernie Quigley, who will be the Guest Host for our live blogging today.
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Carol has written of her time as a member of a military family on her website.

Not long after college, I married what is affectionately known as an Army brat. My husband was in the service during the Vietnam era and we were stationed at an Army Medical Center in Colorado. I saw the terrible physical and psychological damage that war causes. I have carried that memory in my heart all of these years.

I also carry the knowledge from my father's generation that sometimes there is no alternative to war, but I know that we must pursue every option before we use force. I know first-hand how tough it is to be in a military family, away from home and loved ones. Their sacrifices are daily and enormous, and I have great respect and appreciation for the job they do and the struggles they face. Military families and veterans can count on my support in Congress

And here is the endorsement of Carol by the pre-eminent military figure in America today, four star General and former presidential candidate Wesley K. Clark.

General Wesley Clark endorses Carol Shea-Porter for Congress
October 6th, 2006,Little Rock, AR
"I have had the pleasure of getting to know Carol Shea-Porter when she worked for my 2004 Presidential campaign. She is smart, determined, and has a deep personal convictions. She will bring a breath of fresh air to Washington at a time when it is desperately needed."

"Carol is a former military wife and she understands how important it is to protect our soldiers and their families. She has stood up for our soldiers when the Republican leadership failed to provide them with the equipment and the support they need. She rightly criticized the administration for its gross mismanagement of the war and for putting our soldiers at risk without a realistic strategy to win."

"The first step toward solving the problems we face is to replace the people who got us there in the first place. New Hampshire has an opportunity to take a big step in that direction by electing Carol Shea-Porter for Congress."

Bernie Quigley, who was in NH when General Clark came to campaign with Carol, was impressed enough to provide this special essay as the centerpiece of today's diary and to Guest Host this live blogging with Carol today.

Wes Clark and Carol Shea-Porter: A New Direction for the Democrats

We seem to be at the end of things when habeas corpus, a pillar of democratic government, can be swept away overnight almost without discussion in Congress. And we have been hearing these same radicals in Congress and in the Oval Office these last weeks endorsing strategies of torture which have never been even vaguely considered in sound and moral government, and tragically, some of these barbaric and unconstitutional tribal practices have been echoed by leading Democrats.

The Democratic Party is going through a period of change. But it is also a day of awakening. There is new energy and a new climate of discussion, a new willfulness and a new sense of urgency; a new sense of duty. It is a new wind which I didn't feel in 2003. But I got a glimpse of it when General Wesley Clark and Carol Shea-Porter faced reporters after political speeches at the American Legion Hall in Manchester , New Hampshire , two weeks back.

"We know what the Geneva Convention means," said Shea-Porter. "We know what is right. We don't need this discussion."

Carol is a military wife and teacher running for Congress. She and General Clark spoke with one voice about the crisis our country faces.

General Clark's determination, willfulness and drive might have been too rich for the mainstream in 2003 because the mainstream was not yet ready to face the crisis and its challenges. But now it is ready to accept the crisis and ready to address the challenges. General Clark is now becoming the representative figure of the Democrats. His authority is felt to be authentic and is intuitively trusted. He has risen through a waning force; Joe Lieberman's chicanery and Bush appeasement, and a positive charge ?Tammy Duckworth's sincerity and passion and Jim Webb's intelligence, integrity and assertive sense of duty.

I see this same force awakening here in New Hampshire with Carol Shea-Porter as well. Most all present at the Legion Hall were former soldiers and military spouses, and Carol talked to us straight and as one of us, as Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neil, Mary McGrory and Jack Kennedy once did, and with a clarity and determination that the Legion Hall hadn't heard in many years.

This is becoming the new condition of the Democrats and it will become the new forum. Appeasement and denial are falling off like scales and Democrats are rising through the maelstrom. Wes Clark, Eric Massa, Jim Webb, Tammy Duckworth and Carol Shea-Porter are leading the charge for the Fighting Dems to a new century. They are bringing a new direction to our country and a new sense of duty to the Democratic.

The chemistry between General Clark and Carol's campaign must have been good, because by all accounts Wes gave a barn-burner speech that ensconced the major themes of his efforts to put America back on course. Gordon Suber, the chronicler of Clark's political efforts to help change the course for America, had this to say of Gen. Clark's speech at the Portsmouth Democrats Fourth Annual Banquet on October 31st:

For sixty minutes, the 170 partisans listened spellbound at times, as Clark went point-by-point discussing the current crises that America and the world faces as a result of collective arrogance and incompetence of the George W. Bush and those he charged with carrying out American foreign policy.

Last night was the eighty-fourth time I had heard Wesley Clark speak. In my opinion, it was his finest hour. I mentioned to one of the advisers traveling with The General on this two-day, seven event tour of New Hampshire, "Wes has found his groove. Bottle that speech."

And Tom Rinaldo, who also attended the event, also testified to the electrifying speech by Gen. Clark in Written in Granite:

At the final event Wes delivered a speech for the ages, it's hard to find any other way of describing it. I don't know if his marvelous flashes of humor will be understood out of context twenty years from now, but his guided tour of 20th Century American and World History will, I suspect, ring as true then as it did tonight. And it will remain as profound?This was a large crowd seated at dinner tables in a large room, but the hush that fell over it was deafening. Really, that absolutely attentive silence became almost eerie, the type of eerie that leaves goose bumps and makes the hair at the back of your neck stand up. This is our time to save our nation, Clark said, and Wes stressed that the battle can't be won by him or any other political leader, it can't be won by good speeches, it has to be won in the aisles of Super Markets, and on front porches. We have to carry the message that must be heard because that message must be heard in places no speech will ever reach.

And blogger Donna Z had this testimonial about Carol Shea-Porter.

Carol is everything we need in Congress. She is bright, with a voice we all love to hear on the evening news. Her experience is varied between social work, being an Army wife (gotta love those) and fifteen years of teaching Political Science. She's the one folks. What made me marvel was her ease in addressing the nation's rough divide between Democrats and Republicans. Pitch perfect. She said coming from a family that includes twenty Republicans, she knows the dance. It is not about what divides us; it is about what we can, and must, do together. In her pursuit of moving forward, she remains a staunch Democrat with liberal beliefs, but she accepts that all Americans want to live in a good country. It is the failure of our leadership that inspired her run for office.

When Katrina hit the Gulf, Carol packed up and went to volunteer on the Gulf Coast. She said that once there, she couldn't believe what she saw. She also couldn't believe, or didn't want to accept, how inept our government was at handling the problems faced by our citizens. Nothing was done, and much was wasted. Carol's seriousness about changing us for the better shines like this morning's dawn.

I will end with a story from Carol. She said since talking so much about the war in Iraq, she decided that without fanfare, campaign buttons, or a press release, she traveled to see off some departing troops. Standing along the side, she watched as an 18 year old soldier cried as he walked the entire length of the runway. To paraphrase Carol, when we ask an 18 year old to leave home, we better be darn sure that we are certain that we know exactly why we are asking him to defend this country, a last resort. And if we don't, then our government had better be prepared to fight with her.

And this diary will close with a Guest Blog from Carol on JohnKerry.com:

Within twelve hours of my victory in the September Democratic Congressional Primary, my Republican opponent began launching attacks. Jeb Bradley tried the plays from the same outdated playbook, claiming I was weak on defense and that I would endanger the troops. The White House used these lines against John Kerry in 2004, but New Hampshire voters didn't buy it. They knew the truth and they voted for Senator Kerry.

I have fought back against these attacks. My husband was born and lived on military bases for the first eighteen years of his life, then went into ROTC and served his country for four years. I was proud to be a military spouse and I understand what soldiers and their families go through. That is why I have to speak up and tell the truth about the Iraq war and how the Bush Administration has failed our country and our soldiers.

When we ask our soldiers to go to war, we have to be able to tell them and their loved ones what their mission is, and that their government will make sure that they have whatever they need to fight. But the Bush administration has put our brave troops into war without a clear mission and without the armor or equipment they need. Their families have had to scrounge for armor and have been forced to send needed supplies to their soldiers. This is a moral outrage. The Republican leadership has tried to save money on troops while giving tax breaks to the richest Americans.

My opponent agrees with the President's bewildering claim that we are making the world safer. He has chosen to ignore all of the evidence to the contrary. The National Intelligence Estimate reveals that the war in Iraq is inflaming anti-American sentiment worldwide and that it has become a recruiting tool for terrorist organizations. We are in much greater danger today than we were on September 12th. John Kerry knows this and has spoken out against the war, but my opponent blindly follows George Bush.

What can we do to change direction in Iraq? We fire the people who refuse to believe the overwhelming evidence that this is a bungled mess. We elect representatives who have the courage to tell the truth and who will protect the soldiers and the families.

I am ready for the fight. We can change Washington and reverse the tragic course we have taken for the past six years. Senator Kerry proved that New Hampshire is ready to turn blue. With your help, we can make that happen. Thank you.

-- Carol Shea-Porter
Candidate for US Congress

You can contribute to Carol Shea-Porter on the Take Back the Hill ActBlue Page to back a sure-fire Fighting Dem.

Noel Schutz
Fighting-Dems.com

Here are the other fighting Dem relatives (excluding vets who are also parents of military children like Charlie Brown). If you know of any more, please let us know so that we can have a more complete list when we post this on Fighting-Dems.com.

*Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01): spouse of an Army brat who serviced during the Vietnam era.
*Diane E. Benson (AK-AL): Mother whose son served in Iraq until he was severely wounded by a road-side bomb.
*Jerry McNerney (CA-11): Father whose son is a reserve officer in the US Air Force.
*David Loebsack (IA-02): Stepfather whose stepson and his his wife are BOTH captains in the United States Marine Corps; his stepson has already served seven months in Iraq and his wife will likely deploy to Iraq soon.
*Mary Beth Harrell (TX-31): Spouse of a retired military officer and mother of two active-duty soldiers – the oldest serving in Iraq.
*Darcy Burner (WA-08): Daughter of an Air force veteran, Darcy grew up as a "military brat"

[Donna Zen]

1. I'm Donna Z and I approve this message:

If you have seen/heard Carol, you'll understand just why I declared her the one. I want her in Washington.