"Sad but Stoical, Morella Is Trying to Understand." The Washington Post, 7 November 2002.

washingtonpost.com

Sad but Stoical, Morella Is Trying to Understand

By Brigid Schulte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 7, 2002; Page B08

In defeat, Constance A. Morella, one of the last of the liberal Republicans, operated yesterday much as she has in her two decades of victory. She spent the day in her Bethesda campaign headquarters writing thank-you notes to every single person who sent her money, an unprecedented $2.7 million.

The notes, dated Nov. 4, the day before the election, quoted Shakespeare: "So may a thousand actions, once afoot, end in one purpose, and be all well done without defeat."

"Kind of ironic, isn't it?" she said, shrugging, signing letter No. 7,001. "The next batch is for the Laura Bush event. We changed that letter to reflect what happened in the election."

All around her, red-eyed staffers pulled from the walls precinct maps that had been pinpricked and sweated over for months, folded tables and carried armloads of red, white and blue "Morella for Congress" signs out to the dumpster.

Her smile came easily as friends and well-wishers dropped in to embrace her. The phone had been ringing since 6:45 a.m. with people calling to say they were sorry. George H.W. Bush called. There was a message from White House strategist Karl Rove. The computer backed up with e-mails, with belated thanks for the thousand kindnesses, the unsung help she had given. Self-possessed and calm. Yet the tears came easily, too.

The voters who had crossed party lines and chosen her to represent them for 24 years deserted her on this Election Day.

On Tuesday, Republicans won back control of the Senate. They picked up about half a dozen seats in the House. A Republican, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., will occupy the Maryland governor's mansion for the first time since the 1960s. Yet Republican Connie Morella lost.

It was close. She received 48 percent of the vote in a new district drawn to favor a Democrat -- and state Sen. Christopher Van Hollen Jr. (D) won 52 percent of the vote. "But in politics," Morella said matter-of-factly, "close doesn't count."

For a politician with a 77 percent approval rating who had once been courted as a candidate for Senate and governor, it is a tough way to end a career. Ousted by the voters she had repeatedly said it was a privilege and honor to serve.

"Is it hurtful? Yeah. But these things mend," said Morella, 71, sitting ramrod straight in her ribbed gray turtleneck sweater, black slacks, impeccable makeup and black Bass walking shoes that have carried her door-to-door for months of dawn-to-dusk campaigning. "Don't have any sympathy for me. I did everything I could. I don't have any regrets. And the people got what they wanted."

And yet there was an edge of, if not bitterness, then disappointment. And puzzlement.

On Election Day, as she bounced from the Tastee Diner at 6:20 a.m. to 15 voting precincts before cloistering herself at 8 p.m. at her Bethesda home, people apologized to her.

"I just can't understand it," Morella said yesterday. "A woman came out of the polls and said, 'I love you, but I didn't vote for you.' I said, 'Hey, don't tell me, just do what you want.' " Morella's eyes brimmed over.

"It's not that I feel rejected. I'm a big girl," she continued. "It's that I don't understand it. I cannot criticize people for doing what they want. But I just don't understand that schizophrenia."

On Election Day, she knew the polls showed that she and Van Hollen were neck and neck. She thought it could go either way, and she knew she had to be prepared. But she also felt enthusiasm. She was surrounded by young and energetic campaign staffers. And at one point, she thought she could pull it off.

"I always get a good reception wherever I go," she said. "Do you think people were just being nice to me?"

To that, her longtime campaign office manager, Mary Ann Estey, has an easy answer: Yes. "Voters lie," she said acidly. "Voters told me, 'We love her,' then they'd take two steps and say to Van Hollen, 'You've got our vote.' "

Yesterday, Morella planned to sleep, finally. For the first time in years, she wouldn't be up at dawn to go to Bagel City on Rockville Pike or to the Shady Grove Metro station to thank voters. "What is there to thank them for?"

But a few hours later, the phone began ringing with condolence calls from friends and moderate colleagues such as Rep. Amo Houghton (R-N.Y.) and Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.). And one from a man she didn't know. "He said, from the time you ran in 1974, I have voted for you," Morella said, her eyes again welling with tears.

Behind her, framed on the wall as she wrote thank-you notes yesterday, was a newspaper article with the headline "Is she unbeatable?" So sure had she been two years ago that she has confessed her campaign was on "autopilot."

That all changed when Democrats in Annapolis redrew the 8th Congressional District, took away her Republican strongholds in the north and added Democratic precincts in the east stretching into Prince George's County. Throwing down the gauntlet, a gloating state Sen. Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Prince George's) said at the time, "If she runs, she loses."

"We knew it was an impossible task," Morella said. "But what kind of role model would I be if I hadn't tried?"

The former English professor's plan is to go to the Shakespeare Theater and Arena Stage. Beyond that, she doesn't know. "It's time for me to move on. I've done it, and I've done it well."

She took a break to sit down for a meal of pizza and stromboli with her campaign staff -- the last supper, she jokingly called it. Referring to Judas, who betrayed Jesus with a kiss, she laughed and held her cheeks. "I don't want anyone to kiss me," she said. No more kisses.