Why in the world is Carl Sheeler running for the US Senate? (continued)

ANOTHER LIFE LESSON

Another clue as to what makes Carl run could be this observation on his campaign Web site, www.carlsheeler.com: "There is no shame in success or failure, just another lesson."

his 45 years, Sheeler has had his share of life experience. A native of New York City, he has been married three times, lived in Los Angeles, outside Washington, DC, and came with his family to Rhode Island seven years ago. He converted as a young man from Judaism to Catholicism. He has owned Allison Appraisals & Assessments, which measures the value of different companies, since 1992. His wife, Sara, and he have five children from previous marriages. As an adjunct professor at Bryant University, Sheeler teaches business and entrepreneurship. The candidate uses his Web site to mentions his 2001 experience with personal bankruptcy.

As a young person, Sheeler says, he was attracted to the Marines by the idea of being part of something bigger. After gravitating to the Republican Party and backing the presidency of Ronald Reagan, he came to view the GOP as not sufficiently compassionate, and he says he voted for John F Kerry in the last presidential election. Sheeler calls himself a self-actualizing individual, and he says 9/11 galvanized his interest in changing from a political bystander to a political participant.

Brandishing a quart of Exxon-Mobil oil during his October 25 announcement speech at Hope High School, he began by declaring, "I’m against the Bush-Cheney monarchy and their blood for Saudi oil, war in Iraq. Their war is based on lies and greed." In a similar vein, the campaign’s first mailing depicted a crown-wearing Bush with a diagonal strike across his face, and the American dream, represented by a US flag-bedecked coffin, being outweighed on a scale by Saudi oil, Halliburton, and an oil derrick.

Many Democrats perceive the November 8 election — in which Dems won gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, and Californians repudiated a slate of ballot measures backed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger — as an auspicious sign for next year’s congressional races. Sheeler is quick to tap this mood of discontent, perceiving "a real disconnect between the people who represent us and us," and describing a juncture in which voters are starting to more closely examine their political relationships. Yet his outsider status offers him wide latitude in his rhetoric, and he’s quick to assign part of the blame to incumbent Democrats for the lackluster response to Hurricane Katrina and other shortcomings.

Similarly, although his chameleon-like status opens him to skepticism from many Democrats, Sheeler can potentially play a truth-telling role in offering unvarnished criticism of his intra-party rivals.

Some onlookers, in fact, question whether the candidate’s changing political profile is the mark of an opportunist. Asked why Sheeler is making what might seem like a quixotic Senate run, one Democrat says, "It’s a great question. I really don’t know the answer to it. When he first came on the scene, my sense was that he was going to run kind of as a conservative rural Rhode Island-West Greenwich Democrat. And now he’s like a raging leftist radical . . . I have a healthy distrust of people who claim to be progressive and liberal. We don’t see these people at meetings. It just doesn’t seem real; it doesn’t seem valid; it doesn’t seem authentic."

Although Sheeler claims to have had the first blog of any of the local 2006 candidates, the issues section of his Web site remains under construction. Without a doubt, though, he embraces a broad populist critique of politics as usual — rapping, for example, Bush’s tax cuts, the hypocrisy of US foreign policy, and the big bucks needed to run for office (suggesting that Ralph Nader’s idea of a blind trust for campaign donations would eliminate much of motivation for corporate donors).

In one on one conversation, Sheeler is intelligent, articulate, and unfailingly polite. Clad in a dark suit with a Marine Corps tie clip, he conveys a certain presence.

The Democratic outsider has the confidence and communication skills to do well in retail politics, touting his mix of regular guy credentials (not born into wealth, served in the military, business owner, weathered divorce and bankruptcy) and more rarified stuff (having litigated matters before the IRS and Bank of America as part of his business, he says, and having lectured in China on privatization and valuation). Backed by a handful of active supporters, he has spent recent weeks trying to cobble together an unusual hybrid constituency of Latinos, veterans, critics of the war, and disaffected would-be voters.

Over the last eight weeks, Sheeler says, he has held more than 80 meetings with people like Curtis Spence, the founder of Team Providence. After putting a full-time push into the campaign, he has scaled back to return attention to his business, he says, although he continues to dedicate 40 hours a week to the campaign.

A new front opened with the publication of an almost full-page advertisement in Tuesday’s Providence Journal, highlighted by the image of a bald eagle set against an American flag and the legend, "Remembering Our Veterans." "The cost of this ad is more than this campaign can afford right now and that is sort of the point," it reads, concluding with an offer to get involved in the campaign to "experience what ‘grassroots’ really means."

Still, with a barely discernible war chest at this stage — based on about $180,000 in personal savings — Sheeler is destined for also-ran status, at least by the rubric of conventional wisdom. "His big obstacle is that people have not heard of him," says Brown University political science professor Darrell West. "Unless he is able to raise money to publicize himself, it’s going to be almost impossible for him to have much of an effect on this race."

THE REAL WORLD

Sheeler, of course, doesn’t have much use for the conventional wisdom.

The candidate points to the unexpected success of Howard Dean, whose campaign utilized the Internet and meet up groups to build support and galvanize unusually large numbers of small donations. He has enlisted former Dean adviser Joe Trippi as an occasional counselor.

He points to the status quo — such as a $1000-per-person fundraiser held by Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey, the sole Republican running against Lincoln Chafee — as a sign of how ordinary people are left out of the process. "Who are your supporters when you try to raise $1000 donations?" Sheeler asks. "It’s not coming from John Q. Public."

In running for the lofty perch of the Senate after never having held elective office, he cites the late liberal icon Paul Wellstone, who upset a US Senate incumbent with an unusual low-budget campaign.

Describing how one of his family’s two vehicles, a Mercedes 320e, was bought for half the cost of retail on eBay, he suggests that "financial judo" can be used to spread his message in less costly ways than typical television advertising. And when it comes to the relatively small pool of Democratic primary voters, Sheeler suggests that television advertising is not decisive. "I think the question is if primary voters find my message appealing," he says.

Noting how five Democratic town committees — in Barrington, Coventry, Glocester, West Greenwich, and Hopkinton — decided to endorse Whitehouse without even meeting with him, Sheeler asks, "How can you call it democracy? . . . I would call on Bill Lynch, our chairman, to say that this is unacceptable." (Lynch responds, "You have to be a little realistic, and there’s no support for Carl’s candidacy within the party or within the city and town committees.")

It remains open to question how much Sheeler could accomplish even in the unlikely circumstance of his getting elected to the Senate. Although even mainstays like John McCain and Russell Feingold have fought a lengthy uphill battle in promoting campaign-finance reform, Sheeler asserts that he’ll hold entrenched interests accountable, "because if I get elected in the absence of special interests," it could have a ripple effect.

The self-styled populist gets most electric while discussing the typical premise that Brown and Whitehouse enjoy more of an advantage because of their political experience and record in public life, not to mention their sizable campaign war chests. Noting Brown’s tendency to cast himself as an outsider, Sheeler denies this and says, "I’m a political outsider."

He notes that Whitehouse, who has a long record in public service, also has to overcome some dissatisfaction in minority communities about the response to the shooting death in 2000 of police Officer Cornel Young Jr., and the slaying of teenage witness Jennifer Rivera. Noting how Whitehouse declined to lend his support to the fellow Democrat who edged him in the 2002 Democratic gubernatorial primary, Sheeler says, "Why doesn’t someone give Myrth York a call to see what she thinks? I think she might have a different idea about his level of support [for Democrats]."

Citing a comment made by Whitehouse a few months back in the ProJo, in which he likened Brown to a protégé — a comment disputed by Brown — Sheeler says, "So, basically, it’s Sheldon and Sheldon Lite." He questioned whether they are basically spinning their wheels with their fundraising, spending a lot or too little to raise money. "If they beat each other up," Sheeler says brightly, "I think I have a distinct chance of winning."

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.