Newsweek : Profile on Maddow

[bluedawg12]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/170385/page/1
When Left is Right
Rachel Maddow always thought she was an outsider. How did she become a star?

By Julia Baird | NEWSWEEK
Published Nov 22, 2008

From the magazine issue dated Dec 1, 2008
Her extraordinarily quick success has been due at least in part to the fervor and passion this presidential campaign inspired. Since the show debuted on Sept. 8, she has more than doubled the ratings of her predecessor, Dan Abrams, with 1.9 million average total viewers, and she's beaten CNN's Larry King 27 out of 44 nights among viewers 25 to 54.

All the ensuing hype and excitement about Maddow's rapid rise, and her quirks—the smart, self-described "butch dyke" who somehow broke into the cable-news boys' club—has masked the true reason for her success. It's not despite her differences from other talking heads, but because of them. A funny, cerebral and likable young woman who reads graphic novels and hungers for political change is more representative of the times than the older, angrier male pundits who've dominated the debate for so long.

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...the cable-TV networks anointed her as one of their favorite leftist pundits, and not long after that, MSNBC star Keith Olbermann pressured his bosses to give Maddow her own show. Maddow's partner, artist Susan Mikula, believes the "unlikely" label is just code for lesbian: "She goes from Stanford to Oxford to activism to radio, then TV? What's so unusual about that? Is it because she is a gay lady?"

<snip>

Maddow was, according to her parents, a curious, serious child who never spoke baby talk. When her mother, Elaine, would walk into the kitchen to prepare breakfast, the 4-year-old Rachel would be perched on a stool, with her nightgown and bed socks on, reading the newspaper.

<snip>

As a teenager, her dreams revolved around basketball, swimming and volleyball—she wanted to be an Olympic athlete until a serious injury dashed her hopes.

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When Maddow came out as a lesbian at 17, she announced it by putting up posters in the bathroom of her freshman dorm at Stanford, a place she had found to be surprisingly homophobic. It was January 1991, and on the posters she made a sarcastic reference to the first Gulf war, which was just beginning, then suddenly she declared she was gay (the implication: deal with it). "I didn't want any drama," she says. "I didn't want any personal touchy-feely BS from anybody. I just wanted to get it over, and make a joke about it, and move on. It was such an obnoxious thing to do when I think about it. Why did I think anybody in my freshman dorm would care? I was 90 percent attitude."

Someone else cared: her parents, whom she hadn't yet told. When an article about her outing ran in the student newspaper, someone mailed it to them anonymously. They were shocked. Elaine said it was difficult "intellectually, as well as emotionally," because she was brought up as a strict Roman Catholic. As parents, they were protective: "It was worrisome because of the idea she would encounter prejudice and bias in her life—and I am sure she has. Life is hard enough without having to deal with a lot of prejudices," Elaine said. "We worked it through somehow. We just want her to be safe."


<snip>

Today, the most important thing in Maddow's life is Mikula, 50, her partner for the past 10 years. They met when Mikula—who is warm, friendly and curvaceous, with vivid green eyes and blond hair—needed a yard boy.

When Mikula opened the door of her house near Northampton, Mass., Maddow fell in love instantly: "It was irrational and spiritual and unexpected, and there was a moment where it was like time stopped and it was just like, OK, my whole life is different now."

<snip>

She says their relationship "is the thing about which I am most proud and most protective. And if it made sense for my relationship with Susan that I needed to stop being on TV, and stop being on the radio, and go live full time in the Upper Peninsula in Michigan and raise chickens, we'd go live in the Upper Peninsula and raise chickens. It's the single clearest thing in my life."

<snip>

This election, she says with a grin, has destroyed many archaic ideas. There is triumph in her voice: "The idea that America is too flawed, too scarred by racism to elect a black president? That idea is over. When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran said back in April that neither a woman nor a black man could ever get elected in a country like this? How satisfying is it to prove that guy wrong? The idea that liberals can't succeed on television? That's over. Yes, we can." It's a fable for a new age.

[hisownpetard]

1. Thanks for posting! Rachel is awesome and I'm thrilled at her latest barrier-bashing success.

She totally deserves it (and we deserve her - another supremely
rational voice, like Keith's, to help dissect the craziness of the world).

Go, Rach.

[Not Me]

2. I LOVE Rachel

She's smart, atriculate, witty and has a great on-air presence.
Her 6pm drive time XM/AAR program is the one reason I keep my XM subscription.

[bluedawg12]

3. I think Rachel is brilliant.

I thought so before I even knew she was gay, she just say's smart things and tracks so well in debate.

Plus, she kicked David Frum's butt-tootey on air!

[nightrain]

4. love Rachel's style. Loved her when she was on

Air America's early AM radio show with Liz and Chuck D. She stands out! Keep it going Rachel. (Sometimes I wish I had cable so I could watch her show..)