George Mitchell Biographer Douglas Rooks September 22

Sunday, September 4, 2016

George Mitchell Biographer Douglas Rooks September 22

Veteran Maine journalist and columnist Douglas Rooks will discuss his book and read from his biography, “Statesman: George Mitchell and the Art of the Possible,” published this fall by Down East Books / Rowman & Littlefield, at 7:00 pm on Thursday, September 22 at the Camden Public Library. George Mitchell is one of Maine’s most notable citizens, and a public figure of national and international standing. The first full-length account of his life and career, “Statesman” traces Mitchell’s path from his humble beginnings in Waterville, one of five children of an Irish-American laborer and his wife, an immigrant to Waterville’s close-knit Lebanese community.

After graduating from Bowdoin College, serving as an Army intelligence officer in Berlin, and ranking at the top of his class at Georgetown Law School, Mitchell went to work as legislative director for Senator Ed Muskie, later managing Muskie campaigns for vice president and president, and becoming a partner at Jensen & Baird in Portland.

While Mitchell’s loss as the Democratic nominee for governor in 1974 to Independent Jim Longley seemed to mark the end of his political career, he was unexpectedly named to the US Senate by Governor Joe Brennan in 1980 when Muskie became Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter. After winning election to a full term in 1982 over Congressman David Emery in perhaps the greatest comeback in Maine political history, Mitchell pulled off another upset, besting two far more senior senators to become Senate Majority Leader in 1988. Serving with Republican President George H.W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, Mitchell “made politics work,” becoming the most effective majority leader since Lyndon Johnson, enacting such major legislation as the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, Americans with Disabilities Act, long-term Transportation bills, and, to date, the last bipartisan five-year budget and tax agreement.

After leaving the Senate in 1995, Mitchell chaired the talks that brought peace to Northern Ireland in 1998 under the Good Friday Agreement. He also was chairman of the Disney Corporation, wrote major reports for Major League Baseball, and headed the world’s largest law firm, DLA Piper. He founded the Mitchell Institute, which awards college scholarships to students from every Maine high school each year.

Douglas Rooks is a career journalist who worked at weekly and daily newspapers for 25 years. “Statesman” is his first book. Questions and discussion will follow the reading, which is open to the public. “Statesman” has been praised by former Senator Olympia Snowe and former Congressman Tom Allen, and includes an introduction by current Senator Angus King.

Rooks was the editor of the Granite State News in Wolfeboro, N.H., editorial page editor for the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, Maine, and editor and publisher of Maine Times. Now a freelance editor, writer, and author, he covers Maine state government, specializing in environmental issues, public education, municipal affairs, business, and tax policy. He currently writes an op-ed column for several daily newspapers. His writing has earned awards from the National Newspaper Association and New England Press Association, and he has been named best opinion columnist three times by the Maine Press Association. Rooks is a graduate magna cum laude of Colby College, and a former board president of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church in Augusta. He lives, with his wife, in a 210-year-old farmhouse in West Gardiner.