THE POLITICAL TRAIL

A full life cut short

By Michael Jonas, 12/9/2001

he disbelief that rippled through the region at the news that John O'Connor had died last Friday while playing basketball at the Cambridge YMCA came not only because the 46-year-old activist died so young, but because he was so brimming with life.

O'Connor's passion for political change took him from neighborhood organizing in Worcester as a young college graduate in the 1970s to a campaign for Congress in 1998. But at every turn, the working-class Connecticut kid who married into Boston money championed causes with a mix of righteous indignation and disarming humor - a combination delivered through an outsized personality that matched his imposing frame.

One of two books O'Connor authored on environmental issues included a primer on the art of door-to-door political canvassing, a skill O'Connor put to use in 1998 when he ran for the 8th Congressional District seat.

''I'm a door-knocking maniac,'' the ever-ebullient O'Connor said during the campaign. Though well funded thanks to his wife's family money - O'Connor was married to Carolyn Mugar, an heir to the Star Market chain - even his congressional run had the feel of a well-oiled protest. Drawing on a model developed by a Chicago friend, O'Connor ran a ''campaign school'' that brought 18 aspiring young progressive operatives to town from all over the country. They aided his effort while gaining organizing and campaign experience.

''I'm asking them to do what I have essentially done some version of for 20 years,'' O' Connor said at the time.

The congressional run was in many ways an odd fit for O'Connor, who relished the role of the outsider exposing the misdeeds of the mighty.

''He genuinely enjoyed confrontation of authority,'' said Judy Meredith, a veteran human services lobbyist who knew O'Connor for more than two decades.

When he signed up to work with the grass-roots group Massachusetts Fair Share in the late 1970s, O'Connor brought his biting wit to the group's newsletter, The Squeaky Wheel, of which he took charge. And he had a natural knack for the guerrilla theatre maneuvers the group employed to rattle its powerful targets, said Lee Staples, a Fair Share founder who hired O'Connor fresh out of Clark University. Humor was part of his personality and his tactics, said Staples.

Former Brighton state representative Susan Tracy, one of nine Democrats who vied with O'Connor for the Congessional seat, said the candidates practically lived together for six months, appearing at forums together night after night.

''There were some people who you hoped drew the straw for sitting next to you at the events,'' said Tracy. ''When it was O'Connor,'' she said, ''he'd turn to me at some point and point out something ridiculous we saw in the audience.''

''If you ask about all the candidates in that field, `who was the most full of life?''' said Tracy, it was O'Connor who was ''larger than life.''

''The thing I found myself thinking about John,'' said Tracy, ''is given that he died way before he should have, I would say he is someone who didn't put anything on hold.''

This story ran on page 2 of the Boston Globe's City Weekly section on 12/9/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.