'I saw a lot of me in him'
Carmen Amedori, 52, was born in the Govans neighborhood of Baltimore, and her family later moved to Reisterstown, where she spent her teen years.
Her political interest was sparked as a young woman. She recalls an episode in a classroom at Villa Julie college, where a professor recognized the name of one of the students: it was Jamie McGuirk, daughter of state Sen. Harry J. McGuirk.
A student leaned over to Amedori, and whispered: “I wish my dad was a senator.”
“Too late for that. I’ll have to be a senator,” Amedori responded.
She has been a Republican since the 1970s, a time when the party’s prospects were flagging due to Watergate and Nixon. She joined the party, she said, because it seemed like the underdog.
Amedori spent years as a paralegal, doing title abstracts and raising two girls with her first husband. But she had other interests: one day, driving past the Baltimore Sun, she said “I’m going to work there.” Within weeks, she had entered the world of journalism, at the Sun in Carroll County. She stayed in the profession for about three years.
Amedori’s political connections in Carroll County strengthened after her second marriage to Jerry Barnes, who would become the Carroll state’s attorney. She ran his campaign, and when he was elected in 1994, her involvement accelerated.
She got involved with local Republican groups, and was asked to serve on a panel that was reviewing the county charter in 1997. Unhappy with what the board produced, she resigned as chairman two weeks before the vote and campaigned against the changes. The charter amendments were defeated. A year later, she was elected to the House of Delegates. After Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was elected in 2002, he put Amedori on the state parole commission, where she still serves.
Amedori supported McCain during the 2000 campaign, a decision that smacked of rebellion. Ellen R. Sauerbrey, the former gubernatorial candidate, was head of the George W. Bush campaign in Maryland, but had not tapped any residents of Republican stronghold Carroll County to run as convention delegates.
“She slighted Carroll County, and I was very upset,” Amedori said. Legislative colleague Don Murphy of Catonsville was touting McCain, so Amedori took a look, and decided to back the Arizona senator.
“I wasn’t doing it totally to rock the boat,” she said. “The more I learned about him, the more I saw a lot of me in him.”
She attended the 2000 convention as an alternate delegate, and has supported McCain ever since. This year, she volunteered with the campaign, doing advance work for town hall meetings in Florida, and getting to meet the candidate and his family.
Throughout the primaries, “the more his numbers went up, the more excited I got,” she said.
-- written by David Nitkin
Carmen Amedori, 52, is a resident of Westminster and was a state delegate representing Carroll County from 1998 to 2004, when she was appointed by then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to serve on the Maryland Parole Commission. A native of Baltimore and graduate of Villa Julie College, Amedori worked as a paralegal and journalist while raising two daughters, before entering the world of politics. She was one of the few elected officials in Maryland who supported John McCain when he ran for president in 2000, and was an alternate delegate at that year's convention. Her backing has not wavered, and this year, Amedori is the Western Maryland regional director for McCain. She has also been cleared to be a surrogate — meaning she has the blessing to speak on McCain’s behalf when called upon.
Cheryl Miller, 55, and her husband, Michael, coordinate the Volunteers for Obama office in Anne Arundel County. She is an Annapolis resident and mother of two who runs a home-based event planning business. Despite studying political science at Lycoming College in Pennsylvania, Miller was not particularly involved in politics until this year. She was invited to a fund-raiser last fall, and soon found herself immersed in the Obama campaign, working phone banks and traveling to Ohio and Pennsylvania to door-knock. This will be her first convention.