I met Cindy Corell of the Staunton News Leader for a two-hour lunch a couple of weeks ago at one of my favorite Staunton restaurants, Byers Street Bistro. We sat at a table tucked away in one corner and we talked ... and talked ... and talked. Cindy wanted to go back to my growing-up years which surprised me in a way but then I realized what she was doing. She was trying to fish out the background to present a well-rounded picture of who I was and how I came into politics to the point where I was heading to the Republican National Convention as a delegate.
A follow-up interview on the phone Friday was about John McCain's pick as Sarah Palin for Vice President. She had picked up on my reluctance in this campaign even though I had not exactly voiced it ... journalists have a way of reading people over the years. When she mentioned that earlier I had not been exactly excited, she followed it up by saying, "Today you sound almost giddy."
I met the NL photographer Pat Jarrett later in the day at HQs where he took a variety of shots to choose from for the profile that Cindy has of me in today's News Leader. [Editor's note: Article added below since the News Leader link has been inactivated.] I thank her for taking the time to talk and scratch beneath the surface of a political activist and conservative Republican who has been portrayed in a wrong light by some in the liberal community.
Local delegate loyal to GOP
VP announcement sparked her enthusiasm for convention
Monday, September 1, 2008
By Cindy Corell/staff
ccorell@newsleader.com
STAUNTON-- It helped that she'd met George Bush. Lynn Mitchell worked hard on his 2000 campaign and she relished the victory as if it were hers as well.
It is hers, she figured. That's what politics is all about. Elected an alternate delegate to the GOP National Convention this week in Minneapolis, Mitchell had trouble pulling together the same excitement for the John McCain campaign season.
Friday's announcement that McCain had chosen Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate changed all that.
"I am so psyched," she said Friday. "This convention just blew wide open."
McCain wasn't Mitchell's first choice during the primary earlier this year. She went for Fred Thompson. But Mitchell is loyal to a fault, she admits, and her party's candidate is her candidate.
Palin, however? Unlike so many Americans, Mitchell already was familiar with Palin's record and was looking forward to meeting her in Minneapolis.
"This woman, just the fact that she's a woman, energized people," Mitchell said. "She's one of us. Her husband is a union man, just like mine. This woman is an everyday mom, just like me. The very fact that she's unabashedly conservative, and she stands up for what she believes in ... This is not the same-old, same old. This is change. This is putting your money where your mouth is."
Mitchell is most well known in the area for her prolific work on her blog at swacgirl.blogspot.com. If it makes news in the Staunton-Waynesboro-Augusta County Republican realm, Mitchell, who lives just west of Staunton, records, it, reports it and adds her own commentary. It is not something she ever dreamed she would do.
"I'm an introvert," she said bluntly in an interview last week. "In school I took the zero rather than give the oral book report."
The oldest of three daughters raised by working parents in Chesterfield. Mitchell learned self-reliance.
She also helped take care of her younger sister, especially after the early and unexpected death of her father. She was only 22, and living away from home, but she took over the physical chores -- lawn care and home repairs -- to help her mother. She is proud of the work ethic her parents handed down.
But politics? No way. If the political scene was a porch light, Mitchell was a reluctant moth. Little by little, however, she was drawn to it.
Her sister, Gail, helped. A journalist in Texas, she was given the opportunity to write speeches for Texas Gov. George Bush. Mitchell was drawn into the work for the Virginia primary. She collected signatures and her sister invited her to an event in Richmond where she was introduced to Bush.
Later that year, the campaigning paid off. "It is a rush of adrenaline," she said. "It is a spirit. I've never been a marathon runner, and this was a sprint. It was demanding. And the fact that we won ... When we won, it was a sweet victory. We had worked really hard and won.
"That was the hook," she added. "Man, that was the hook."
Mitchell's ferocity when it comes to getting the work of her party done surprised Phil Lynch when he met her. Lynch works with Mitchell in the communications arm of the Augusta County Republican Committee.
"She's so friendly, so nice, and the politics, recently locally, is so hard-boiled," Lynch said. "But Lynn stays in there. She is so strong in her beliefs, in what she thinks should be done."
In a presidential campaign that heated up much more quickly than most, the National GOP Convention planning has had to be nimble even as late as Sunday.
With Hurricane Gustav making its way toward the fragile Gulf Coast still mending from the 2005 assault of Hurricane Katrina, the convention leaders announced they would shorten today's schedule and include information for those affected by the storm.
It promises to be an eventful run to Election Day, and Mitchell is prepared for whatever comes.
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