Lowell Sun - He's Shown He Can Beat the Odds

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By Matt Murphy
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The seed for Jamie Eldridge's upstart campaign for Congress was planted in a bar.

Eldridge, a state representative from Acton, was having lunch across the street from the Statehouse at the 21st Amendment with two of his colleagues.

Then-Rep. Robert Coughlin mentioned what he believed to be an inevitability -- U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan would be leaving Congress to become the next chancellor of UMass Lowell.

"Eldridge, you should run for that seat," prodded Rep. Michael Rush, a Brookline Democrat.

The idea wasn't so far-fetched. Since catching the political bug at age 16, Eldridge has always had great ambitions. His friends, when he was a student at Boston College Law School, used to joke behind his back that their tall, passionate classmate from Acton would one day become governor of Massachusetts.

Eldridge left the restaurant and went to a meeting. By the time he returned to his office and logged onto his computer, Rush had e-mailed Eldridge a map of the 5th Congressional District.

"I started thinking about all the frustrations I had with the war in Iraq, health care and other issues. The federal seat is really a place where you can make a big difference," Eldridge said.

Eldridge, 33, grew up in leafy South Acton, the son of a teacher and an engineer.

His mother, Betsy Eldridge, taught nursery school, kindergarten, and first grade for 25 years in the Acton-Boxboro public schools, while his father, David Eldridge, recently retired from a 35-year career as an electrical engineer working for Raytheon in Marlboro.

He has one sibling, a younger sister, Amanda, who now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

"He was just a regular, great kid," said his mother, Betsy, who has been a mainstay on the campaign trail this summer. "Fun-loving, curious, high energy. He played a lot of soccer and basketball."

Whether it is sitting in the audience during debates for support, hosting cookouts for her son's campaign staff or helping to staple lawn signs in the family garage, Betsy Eldridge has supported her son every step of the way in his political career.

"I love politics, and more importantly I love where he stands on the issues," she said.

Eldridge undoubtedly got some of his passion for politics from his mother.

But there was a more specific moment in time that helped cement Eldridge's desire to pursue a career in public service.

Eldridge's junior-varsity basketball coach at Acton-Boxboro High School was a man named Arthur Lambert. Lambert also happened to be chief of staff to then-state Rep. Bob Durand, of Marlboro.

Lambert one weekend took his team off the hardcourt and put them to work, nailing down lawn signs throughout town for Durand, who was running for state Senate.

Many on the team were not thrilled with their coach's assignment. But Eldridge was hooked.

At age 17, Eldridge became Durand's Acton campaign coordinator, helping the Marlboro rep and one of Eldridge's political mentors win election to the Senate.

He would go on to become a legislative aide in Durand's Statehouse office and to manage the 1998 re-election campaign of state Sen. Pam Resor, another mentor, before embarking on a political career of his own.

Eldridge is the youngest Democrat in the race to succeed Meehan in Congress.

But his age says nothing about his abilities on the campaign trail. Name the topic, and Eldridge almost certainly has a well-thought-out stand on the issue. He also tries to display a willingness to buck the status-quo when he believes it's the right thing to do.

His opponent, Niki Tsongas, recently told his mother after one recent candidate forum that Eldridge was, hands down, the best debater among the field of five Democrats.

The campaign, however, has not been without its bumps in the road. In the southern end of the district, Eldridge boasts a passionate base of supporters energized by his liberal policy positions and emphasis on grass-roots organizing.

He is not afraid to say outright that America is losing the war in Iraq, and speaks almost nonstop on the campaign trail about his support for an expansion of Medicare to cover all Americans, including the 47 million living in this country without health insurance.

He has a strong record in the Legislature fighting to protect the environment, and has been endorsed by scores of labor unions throughout the district.

But Eldridge has also found himself pitted against a field of candidates that includes two legislative colleagues, Barry Finegold, of Andover, and Jim Miceli, of Wilmington, and two women in Eileen Donoghue and Niki Tsongas with strong ties to Lowell, the district's largest city.

Though he eschews the power of money in politics, its effect in a race like this special Congressional election has been undeniable.

"I'm grass-roots. I knew I was never going to raise $1 million," said Eldridge, when asked what he perceives to be his weakness as a candidate.

Since the start of his campaign, two key staffers have either quit or been fired, and recent reports claim Eldridge's campaign may be on the verge of running out of money.

The three-term legislator, however, is no stranger to winning against tall odds.

His first campaign for public office came in 2002. Not unlike this opportunity, Eldridge sought to seize on an open seat in the House after redistricting put his Acton home in a completely new district.

Eldridge ran as a Clean Elections candidate, one of the first candidates in the state to qualify and win with public financing under the state's new Clean Election law.

He spent six hours a day, seven days a week banging on doors and meeting with voters.

He bested four other Democrats that year, winning nearly 50 percent of the vote to face Republican Todd Fenniman in what became a bruising general election.

Fenniman tried to go negative on Eldridge, even filing complaints against Eldridge and his mother with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance over alleged Clean Election violations.

They didn't stick, and Eldridge prevailed by 4 percent.

The swell of screams and laughter could be heard down the hallway.

Eldridge had ducked in from the blistering heat to meet with Michelle Hatem-Meehan, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Lowell, for a tour of the facility.

He wanted to discuss how the federal government could help provide more resources for the club, which serves as many as 350 inner-city youth each day.

As Eldridge walked into the recreation room, a swarm of children surrounded the 6-foot-5-inch stranger in the navy suit.

"Who are you?" they asked.

"My name is Jamie and I want to represent you in the United States Congress," he said calmly. "Can you tell me about things you need in your neighborhoods."

One girl started to lobby hard for more water parks. Another suggested hot tubs in every backyard. They settled on making sure neighborhood pools had the resources to stay open during the hot summer months.

Then 9-year-old Naomi Rizzo took Eldridge's hand, eyeing the black and gold college ring he wears on his finger.

"Where did you get that," Naomi asked.

Eldridge told her he got it from going to college.

"Will you promise me that you'll go to college, too?" he implored.

"I promise," she said.

They shook on it.

Eldridge may hail from the southern suburbs of the 5th Congressional District, but he is no stranger to the struggles of the district's urban centers of Lowell, Lawrence and Haverhill.

After graduating from Boston College Law School, Eldridge accepted a position as a legal aide attorney with Merrimack Valley Legal Services in Lowell and Lawrence.

For a year and a half, Eldridge practiced housing, unemployment and disability law, working with neighborhood groups to set up nonprofits and helping immigrants start small businesses.

Though he left that job to run for state representative, the lessons he learned helped shape the legislator he would become.

He credits his work in Lowell with giving him the direction to fight for an increase in the minimum state education aid and for Individual Development Accounts that provide state matching funds to help poor families save to buy a house, start a business or go to college.

"Even in college, we used to say he would be governor one day. He just always (has) been interested in helping people and changing government," said David Brown, Eldridge's BC classmate who worked with him at Merrimack Valley Legal Services and still works there today.

That laser-like focus left none of his friends surprised when he told them he planned to run for Congress.

"I was really happy for him. For as long as I've known him, he's always had a vision for his life," said Josh Bowman, another BC classmate and lawyer who became close friends with Eldridge after a spring-break service trip to Miami.

His friends use words like "intelligent," "driven," and "genuine" to describe Eldridge.

"Jamie is someone's who's very affable, and approachable, and very sincere. But once you get to know him, he's also someone who's really funny," Bowman said.

Whenever the two friends go out together socially, Bowman said he can count on getting a call the next day from Eldridge thanking him for hanging out.

"At first, it caught me off guard. I didn't know what to make of it. But it's a trait I've tried to emulate, actually. He really appreciates his friends," Bowman said.

In the Eldridge family, dinnertime equaled family time.

"We always sat down to dinner together and had big family discussions. We didn't always agree with each other, but that was OK. Maybe that's why he's a good debater now," Betsy Eldridge said.

Whatever it was, Eldridge the politician rarely gets rattled. He's unwavering on his positions and articulates them clearly and passionately.

The source of Eldridge's conviction is up for debate. When asked where it comes from, Betsy Eldridge just smiled coyly.

Eldridge said his mother had a major influence on him growing up, both as a teacher and having watched her become an active member of the Acton community.

But Eldridge also points to his soft-spoken father as an equal source of his desire to serve the public.

The elder Eldridge came from a "broken, troubled family" on Cape Cod. Eldridge said his father escaped because he was a smart man who went to college and worked hard to make a better life for himself and his family.

"I've always wanted to make sure all people, if they come from a troubled background, have the opportunity to do what my dad did," Eldridge said. "That's the role government should be playing."

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