The Political Machine
Jeanne Shaheen, a three-term New Hampshire governor, is running the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics. Her aim: to get students at Harvard and around the country involved.
Not long after last November's election, John Kerry's national campaign chairwoman, Jeanne Shaheen, took off for Spain, where, at the behest of George Washington University, she dissected the 2004 presidential campaign.
To an audience that included no reporters.
To an audience that didn't speak English.
It's a story Shaheen likes to tell on herself, although admittedly it's picked up a few embellishments along the way (at least one account of Shaheen's remarks - and her contention that the Bin Laden tape that surfaced a few days before the election frightened voters - managed to find its way into the Spanish-language press). Still, Shaheen makes clear, she's said everything she's ever going to say about the election of 2004.
"I think democracy works," she insists. "It doesn't always work the way I want it to."
Shaheen, who has served as a New Hampshire state senator and three-term governor, has never been inclined to spend a lot of time looking in the rearview mirror. True, if things had gone a bit differently in Ohio, she would be in Washington now. Indeed, if things had gone a bit differently in her 2002 race for the US Senate, Shaheen would now be an old hand at the Manchester-to-D.C. commute. Instead, the 58-year-old Shaheen is in Cambridge, just installed as the first permanent female director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
The mission of the nonpartisan institute is to "unite and engage" students, particularly undergraduates. For Harvard students, Shaheen says, the question is "How do we encourage them to have the same kind of experience that influenced John Kennedy to devote his life to public service?"
It's not only Harvard students who concern Shaheen, herself a graduate of Pennsylvania's Shippensburg University. Presidents, after all, are as apt to come from places like the University of Michigan or Whittier College as they are from Harvard. Shaheen - and the institute - construe a broader mission. In 2003, the institute launched the National Campaign for Political and Civic Engagement, working with 19 other schools across the country to involve students in elective politics, careers in public service, and civic education.
"For me, personally," says Shaheen, "to be in a place that has so much history and connection to my generation [is] very exciting."
Her challenge is to pass the torch to a generation for whom "Kennedy" conjures an The Political Machineimage that's little more than one part brick and mortar and two parts Oliver Stone. What Shaheen - who lives in Harvard's undergraduate housing and often dines with students - may actually be in the best position to do is instill in students a hunger for the kind of experiences that influenced her life of public service.
In 1971, a young Jeanne Shaheen was teaching in Mississippi when the governor of a neighboring state caught her attention, declaring in his inaugural address, "The time for racial discrimination is over." Four years later, Shaheen and her husband, William Shaheen, attended the first state organizational meeting for Georgia governor Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign. In short order, she and Billy were the Carter organization in New Hampshire, creating the framework for the "Shaheen machine" that's dominated the Granite State's Democratic political landscape for three decades.
Shaheen is that rare force in American politics, as gifted a political strategist as she is a skilled candidate and public official. She is the common denominator in Carter's come-from-nowhere New Hampshire primary win in 1976, the suppression of Ted Kennedy's primary challenge in 1980, Gary Hart's upset victory in 1984, the 11th-hour turnback of Bill Bradley's campaign in 2000, and Kerry's come-from-behind primary triumph in 2004. In 1996, state Senator Shaheen became New Hampshire's first elected female governor - one of only three Democrats elected governor of New Hampshire in the 20th century.
In 2000, Shaheen made Al Gore's short list of potential running mates. After a narrow loss in the 2002 US Senate race, she did a brief stint at the Kennedy School before announcing "Vacation's over!" and joining the Kerry campaign. "Jeanne Shaheen is the whole package when it comes to political leadership in the United States," says Victoria Budson, executive director of the Women and Public Policy program at the Kennedy School. With a resume equaled by few male politicians, Budson says, Shaheen "has the capacity to run for president."
Shaheen's public career eclipsed her husband's, but it is an extraordinary partnership. A former US district attorney, district court judge, and state chair for Kerry 2004, he resigned his judgeship in 1996 to help his wife run for governor. Jeanne Shaheen may believe democracy works, but Billy Shaheen believes it works best if he has his wife's back. They have three daughters, one of whom is enrolled in a Kennedy School mid-career program.
"Politics has changed a lot in the 30 years the institute has been operational," Jeanne Shaheen says. "I want us to think about how we can integrate civil discourse, ethics, and bipartisanship into the work that we do."
Back in New Hampshire, 2008 presidential hopefuls are already shaking hands, swatting mosquitoes, even buying the occasional television spot. After being in the game for 30 years, can Shaheen envision being a player ever again? "Who knows? My goal is to do the best job I can for however long they'll have me, and we'll see what happens."
Margaret Doris is a freelance writer in Newton. Send e-mails to magazine@globe.com. 