The Columnist Who Shut Up to Speak Out
Connie Schultz Gave Up Her Platform to Jump on Her Husband's Bandwagon
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 17, 2006; Page C01
"I'm having to rein myself in," says Connie Schultz of her role as wife to Rep. Sherrod Brown. (By Joanna Kuebler)
CLEVELAND At a lively Democratic gathering in a nearby suburb, Senate candidate Sherrod Brown is talking up his wife to the party faithful. He says, as he always does in this part of Ohio, that the crowd probably already knows Connie Schultz as a prizewinning newspaper columnist.
As the seven-term congressman praises her "terrific sacrifice" in giving up the column in the Plain Dealer during the campaign, a spirited voice calls out from the back, "Just win, honey!"
That would be Schultz, who less than a year after winning a Pulitzer Prize tucked away her pen and pad to support her husband in the toughest race of his career -- and one of the most important, most intense, most eyeballed matches of the 2006 campaign season.
The campaign role is new to her. So, for practical purposes, is the marriage. Schultz and Brown met in 2003 when each was long divorced. Now, barely on opposite sides of 50, they are learning to be political partners amid the friction and heat of a grueling race. As friend Jackie Cassara put it, "Why don't you just put them in a centrifuge and spin vigorously?"
Brown is surrendering a safe seat in Congress after seven terms to challenge Sen. Mike DeWine, a two-term Republican incumbent with a campaign treasury that stretches from Cincinnati to Toledo. Schultz is giving up the comfort and satisfaction of her freewheeling newspaper voice....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101601308.html