Vernon Parker was chatting with friends at a party last week when
his wife called him aside for a quick huddle. This
wine-and-cheese reception at the couple's home in Paradise
Valley, Arizona, was a $50-per-ticket fundraising event, but Lisa
Parker had just learned that some of their guests had the
potential to "max out" -- donating the maximum $2,400 individual
contribution allowed under federal law -- and it was important
that the congressional candidate make sure to get a little extra
face-time with these major Republican donors.
Careful observance of such fine points of campaign
etiquette can make a big difference in a hard-fought election,
and eight candidates are seeking the GOP nomination to replace
retiring Rep. John Shadegg in Arizona's 3rd District. The
couple's strategic
tête-à-tête
at the fundraising reception was accomplished with
unobtrusive grace and, though Lisa Parker later averred that she
is "just a lawyer," she clearly has top-notch skills as a
political wife. Her husband's skills aren't too shabby, either.
Vernon Parker was trained by one of the most legendary campaign
strategists in American history.
"The first time I met him, he said, 'Hey, you got a job?'
-- with that South Carolina accent -- I said, 'No, not yet.' He
said, 'Well, come on over here and let me introduce ya to some
folks.'"
The man with the Carolina drawl was none other than the
late Lee Atwater, who ran the campaign that elected George H.W.
Bush president in 1988 and who served as chairman of the
Republican National Committee before his death in 1991.
"He gave me my first start in
politics," said Parker, a Texas native who is 50 but looks much
younger. Nearly 25 years after beginning his political career, he
still speaks of the lessons he learned from his first mentor. "It
is a fight… It is a war. And I will take all the tools that my
friend Lee Atwater taught me and we'll deploy with my team and
fight to take this country back."
Team Parker is doing well so far. In the first quarter of
this year, which ended last week, his congressional campaign
raised more than $230,000 from some 700 donors -- an
impressive total, considering that Shadegg's retirement wasn't
announced until mid-January. Parker had been planning to run for
governor, but switched to the congressional race without breaking
stride, saying that he'd received more than 200 e-mails from
supporters urging him to seek Shadegg's seat.
In a strongly Republican district in what is shaping up as
a high-tide year for the GOP, a lot of other Republicans had the
same idea. The field in AZ-3 includes Ed Winkler, one of Parker's
predecessors as mayor, as well as former state senators Jim
Waring and Pamela Gorman, and Ben Quayle, the 33-year-old son of
former Vice President Dan Quayle.
That famous name drew the attention of the New York
Times to the district, but the resulting front-page
feature article actually shined a brighter light on
Parker, relating his up-from-poverty life story and
noting that he "would be the only black Republican
congressman if elected" -- a fact that isn't necessarily
true.
Scarcely noticed amid the incessant media clamor over
accusations of Tea Party racism, the GOP has actually attracted
more black congressional candidates this year than at any time in
recent memory. If Parker prevails in Arizona, he could be joined
in the 112th Congress by a number of other black Republicans,
including Allen West from Florida's 22nd District, Les Phillip
from Alabama's 5th District, Princella Smith from Arkansas' 1st
District and Angela McGlowan from Mississippi's 1st District.
Pundits may ponder the historic significance of such a national
trend, but in Arizona, Parker is ready for an all-out battle all
the way to the Aug. 24 primary in the 3rd District -- a battle he
expects to win by sheer hard work, which has brought him a long
way already.
Parker is now mayor of Arizona's wealthiest town -- the
median household income in Paradise Valley was more than
$150,000, according to the 2000 Census -- but he was raised in
California by his grandmother, who worked as a maid. "I grew up
in an apartment that probably was about 500 square feet," he said
last week, standing beneath the palm trees in the backyard of his
home, while donors mingled nearby.
He excelled in high school and was the first in his family
to attend college, beginning at Long Beach Community College
("because it was free"), then majoring in finance at Cal State
Long Beach. He was working as an analyst at Rockwell
International when he was accepted at Georgetown Law School --
but with no scholarship offer.
"I owned a house. I sold it.… My grandmother
of 75 stated cleaning houses again, and my mother started
cleaning houses. My brother gave me everything that he had,"
Parker recalls. "I bought a one-way ticket… and I'll never forget
going to the airport that evening, and seeing about 20 people
there with me… and the tears that were flowing down their faces.
When I turned down that jet walkway and turned and looked at
them, I realized that me going to law school was not as an
individual, but as something for my family, something for my
community."
That's the American dream he wants to preserve for future
generations. "I had made a commitment that, if I got out of the
environment that I grew up in, what I would do is to work to get
others out, because there are a lot more Vernon Parkers out
there," he says. "I always wanted to make a change, make a
difference, and the way that I figured we could do that was
through the law."
At Georgetown, he found himself competing against alumni of
prestigious Ivy League schools. "You know that's how
I met my wife, actually," he says. "She was from Arizona State,
and they wouldn't let state school people into their study
groups, so we formed our own and did a lot better than the Ivy
Leaguers did."
After meeting Atwater and joining the 1988 Bush campaign,
Parker went on to staff positions at the Office of Personnel
Management and in the White House until Bush was defeated by Bill
Clinton in 1992. "I thought politics was over," he says. Parker
moved to Arizona and was surprised in 2002 to get a call from the
next President Bush, who appointed him an assistant secretary in
the Department of Agriculture. He spent more than three years
commuting from Arizona to D.C. for that job and says, "I'm used
to the commute already, so when I become a member of Congress, it
will be very easy to commute. I know how to get to the airport on
time."
He said "when" he becomes a member of Congress, not "if."
Having come this far, Parker isn't planning to lose.
