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Despite the polls that always showed her lagging, despite the Concord Monitor's endorsement of Bradley, the one that called her "brusque, even abrasive," Shea-Porter sensed victory. As she walked the sidewalks of Manchester, people rapped on windows, gave her the thumbs up, and honked as they drove by. As tired as she was, she waved, she smiled, and, of course, she talked.

In the hours and days after the election, as pundits absorbed the surprising win, she began to earn some respect, even from the right. Although Charlie Arlinghaus '88G, president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank, agrees with other Republicans that it was "a good year to be a Democrat," he says Shea-Porter also worked hard and energized a lot of liberal residents. She was knowledgeable, Arlinghaus says, and used what little money she had well. She aired only two TV ads, one of which featured Shea-Porter and her mother, who was introduced as a lifelong Republican, and who then asked the audience to vote for her daughter. "Everyone remembers that ad," he says. "It was a great symbol of her campaign: cheap but effective."

In less than six days, Shea-Porter will be sworn in to the 110th Congress. She has yet to pack, yet to figure out her BlackBerry that is now filled with names like Pelosi and Obama, yet to renew her driver's license and register her car. All of these things she rattles off to her chief of staff Harry Gural, who has made the mistake of saying that the upcoming days won't be stressful. They are in a Manchester restaurant with French and some other members of the inner circle after a day stuffed with meetings--staff in the morning, environmentalists in the afternoon--a rally for presidential hopeful John Edwards and a thank-you tour through the West Manchester social clubs. She had promised to return if she won.

On this evening in late December, Shea-Porter has no way of knowing that in the first 100 hours of the new Congress, she will have the chance to keep other promises she made on the campaign trail, that she will vote to extend stem cell research, lower interest rates for college students and make prescription drugs affordable. She has no way of knowing that she will stand on the House floor to speak against President Bush's plan to send 20,000 additional troops to Iraq. All she knows right now is that next week she will begin the commuting life between Washington during the week and Rochester on the weekends. She knows that she will soon manage a staff of 18, a blend of campaign cohorts--Sue Mayer will serve as senior policy advisor--and seasoned Capitol Hill aides. To succeed, she recognizes that she must balance people who know her with people who know Washington. For those jobs, she says, "I received more applications than there are residents of New Hampshire."

She is well aware that her job is vulnerable, that Republicans are determined to win it back, that in 2008 she will not benefit from a Bush backlash and that she will no longer be Carol the Campaigner but Carol the Congresswoman. She will be a politician with a record. Anything could happen. Yet that is then and this is now and she is confident that if the rumbling volcano she heard during the past 14 months is accurate and truly does represent the will of her district, she will endure.

As she stands to leave the restaurant, a table of four begins to clap, then another breaks out, and another. "We love you, Carol," one woman yells. Shea-Porter walks over to the woman, shakes hands, smiles.

And begins to talk.

Sue Hertz '78 is an associate professor of journalism at UNH and author of Caught in the Crossfire: A Year on Abortion's Front Line. Her articles have appeared in national and regional magazines.

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