Every paragraph is a gem in this Boston Globe piece on Carol Shea-Porter, by Rick Klein, but I tried to be as selective as I possibly could, and still make you want to read the whole thing...

The last time Carol Shea-Porter had been in the same room as President Bush, she said, her T-shirt's message -- "Turn your back on Bush" -- won her a push out the door from a Bush supporter as she left an airplane hangar in Portsmouth.

[snip]

Shea-Porter is one of the very few people in the age of big-money campaigns who can watch "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and truly see herself. She's of a political breed that many believed was extinct: the angry citizen who decides to run for Congress -- and wins.

[snip]

She had no slick ads or Washington consultants. Her campaign was run by a medieval scholar who worked alongside a nutritionist, an accident investigator, and a pair of court reporters. The Democratic establishment brushed her off as unelectable. She was outspent 5 to 1.

[snip]

Shea-Porter and Mayer were told they needed to raise money -- perhaps as much as $1 million -- but they never really tried. Instead, Mayer said, she used her master's degree studies in medieval history to spread Shea-Porter's message by word of mouth, learning lessons from centuries-old rebellions that turned on word of mouth and "spread like wildfire."

[snip]

And finally... "The morning after the election, the DCCC called with its first offer of financial support."

"They asked us if we wanted them to pay our debt, and we told them we didn't have any," Shea-Porter said. "But it was nice of them to offer."

Now they know her name... at the DCCC.