. . . And His Lovely Wife

by Connie Schultz

  “There is unfinished business in this state, and I believe, the good Lord willing, that I have unfinished business, too.”

  He never mentioned Sherrod.

  As soon as DeWine finished, the stage at Public Hall went dark. Dennis Eckart gave us last-minute instructions: We were to wait until his son, Eddie, introduced us over the loudspeaker. Sherrod and I would then walk out on center stage together, followed by our family and friends. I was to stand to Sherrod’s left.

  “You won’t be able to miss your marker,” Dennis said, grinning. “I marked a strip of tape on the floor just for you.” He seemed awfully excited about a strip of tape, but then again, we were excited about everything that night.

  Sherrod and I walked behind the black curtain. I closed my eyes, trying to will myself to live in the moment, in this moment, to breathe it all in so that I’d never forget everything that was about to happen.

  Somewhere, drums started to beat the prelude to Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man as a booming, faceless voice (that of Eddie) announced with high drama:

  “He fights for the middle class.”

  Sherrod looked at me and grinned.

  “He’ll stand up for Ohio.”

  We both started giggling.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the next senator from the great state of Ohio—the Honorable Congressman Sherrod Brown, and his wife, Connie Schultz!”

  The curtains parted, and out we walked into the blinding lights. The ceiling rained confetti as the music blasted and hundreds of supporters clapped, cheered, screamed, and even cried at the sight of their next senator.

  Fighting tears, I turned to Sherrod and shouted the first thing that came to mind.

  “Doesn’t this music remind you of the scene in The Natural when Robert Redford hits the home run and smashes the lights and the crowd goes crazy?”

  “Robert Redford?” Sherrod shouted.

  “Yeah.”

  “Robert Redford is here?”

  “No,” I yelled. “He was in The Natural.”

  “Right here?”

  “No,” I said, suddenly realizing how ridiculously out of the moment I had just traveled. “Never mind!”

  The crowd started chanting, “Sher-rod! Sher-rod! Sher-rod!” which made the object of their affection turn a fetching shade of fuchsia.

  “All right, all right,” he said, laughing as he gestured for them to stop. This only inspired a louder round of “Sher-rod! Sher-rod! Sherrod!”

  He opened the leather binder that held his notes, and I looked down to find my stage marker. As soon as I saw the writing on the foot-long strip of tape, I knew why Eckart had been so pleased with himself: “THE LOVELY WIFE.”

  Finally, the room grew quiet, and Sherrod uttered the twelve words that would be repeated in stories and video clips around the country: “Today, in Ohio, in the middle of America, the middle class won.”

  The room exploded.

  He praised their progressive values and the work they did to help change the country, and then he repeated what had become the mantra of all the Democratic candidates in Ohio: “As Ohio goes in ’06, so goes the nation in ’08.”

  Again, the crowd erupted, which it continued to do throughout his ten-minute speech. Sherrod reminded them that most politicos thought he could not win when he got into the race, that they had advised him to abandon his progressive politics for the middle of the road.

  “They warned us to be cautious. They advised me not to be myself…. But you know, it’s a risk worth taking to stand up for what you believe in, and it’s a risk worth taking to fight uncompromisingly for progressive values…. This year, we knew the politics of fear wouldn’t work, and we knew the politics of smear wouldn’t work. What people needed was hope, and you gave people hope by making it clear what we stand for.”

  Then he repeated the principles of his entire campaign, each one of them greeted with cheers and applause:

  “We’re for a higher minimum wage and embryonic stem cell research.

  “We’re against an energy policy dictated by the oil industry…but we want to make Ohio the Silicon Valley of alternative energy.

  “We want affordable health care for all Americans.

  “We’re against job-killing trade agreements that betray our values and destroy our communities.

  “We want to fix No Child Left Behind and make tuition affordable for middle-class Americans.”

  He paused, then leaned into the microphone and said, “We all want an end to the war in Iraq,” which drew the loudest applause.

  He told once more the story behind his canary pin—he just couldn’t help himself—rattling off many of the laws championed by progressives that have saved American lives. “That’s why we are such a great people, because we’re in this together, we’ve fought together, we’ve worshipped together, and we’ve worked together.”

  Suddenly, a corner of the room near a video screen erupted into cheers. Someone yelled the news to Sherrod. Gesturing toward the audience, he asked, “They know it yet?” When it was clear that the word hadn’t spread, Sherrod turned back toward the crowd and made an announcement that brought down the house: “The networks just said the Democrats won the House of Representatives!”

  Then, in a rare moment of abandon, one that the kids and I still tease him about, Sherrod leaped into the air, pumping his arm and yelling, “All right! All right! Change is on the way!” For a few more weeks, he was still a House member, and one who’d spent most of his congressional career there in the minority.

  He wrapped up by reminding his supporters what he had learned the hard way: “As progressives, don’t ever let them question your values, don’t ever let them question your faith, and don’t ever let them question your patriotism!”

  One more time, the crowd erupted, chanting “Sher-rod! Sherrod! Sher-rod!” as the house lights went up.

  JOE TONE, THE TWENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD REPORTER FROM THE weekly Scene magazine in Cleveland who touched base with me fairly regularly during the campaign, provided his own insights from that night in an e-mail a few weeks later. He had called me after the election asking whether I was planning to return to The Plain Dealer, and in the course of the conversation I mentioned his coverage of election night.

  Of all the journalists and columnists covering Sherrod’s campaign, the ones who demonstrated time and again their eye for the telling personal details of life that illustrate a bigger story were Jessica Wehrman of the Dayton Daily News, Peter Slevin of The Washington Post, and Joe Tone of Cleveland Scene.

  Tone included this passage in his election coverage:

  [T]he kids’ faces said it best. They were kind of blank. Joy and pride and the rest would come later, it seemed, when this guy of theirs—dad, step-dad, dad-in-law, uncle—started getting introduced as U.S. Senator. But for the moment, they simply seemed relieved. Relieved that the whole damn thing was over. Relieved that they didn’t have to hold their breath every time Grey’s Anatomy went to commercial, wondering what they might hear about their guy. Relieved not so much that their guy had won, but that, thank God, he didn’t lose.

  Weeks later, that passage about our children still made Sherrod and me misty. Our kids had invested so much of themselves in Sherrod’s race.

  “You were right,” I told Tone later in a phone conversation. “Our children were relieved that it was over, particularly Caitlin. She was so worried that Sherrod would not win, because she’d never been in a campaign with him. She was all hope and no experience.”

  Before hanging up, I told Tone that I wished I had seen him at the victory party. “Well, it was a crazy night,” he said, adding that my face as we worked our way through the election-night crowd reflected “total shock and amazement.”

  He was right, of course. I really didn’t even see who was in front of me that night. I remember recognizing at the time almost everyone who grabbed my hand across the crowd control barriers, but now I can name only a handful of the people who shook my hand. I rec
all Wendy Leatherberry standing behind me, her hands alternately hovering around my waist or pulling me back with a tug on my jacket as well-wishers pulled me by the arm. I remember John Kleshinski, in tears as Sherrod spoke and later without his usual grin as he stood next to Sherrod, performing the same body-check for Sherrod that Wendy did for me, tugging hard on occasion to rein Sherrod in when supporters yanked on him with too much enthusiasm.

  I also remember having to muscle my way through the lock grip of reporters and cameramen surrounding my husband so that I could stand near him as he answered the onslaught of questions. I remember squinting into the bright lights, and grabbing a fistful of Sherrod’s suit coat so that I didn’t lose my balance amid all the jostling by television crews competing for the same sound bite. I remember Jackson Browne’s “I Am a Patriot” blasting from the loudspeaker as Sherrod descended from the stage, and singer-songwriter J. D. Souther rushing up to us with hugs of congratulation.

  There’s so much I don’t recall, though, despite my intention to remember it all. I don’t remember confetti falling from the ceiling after Sherrod’s speech, even though a videotape of that night shows it landing on our heads and shoulders like fat snowflakes of red, white, and blue. I don’t recall seeing our kids or our other relatives in the sea of faces after we left the stage, but somehow they all ended up with us in our hotel suite, hugging us good night before leaving for their own rooms. I don’t remember who poured the champagne into the flute in my hand, but I can still see Sherrod smiling at me when I giggled as the first bubbles tickled my throat.

  My final memory of Election Night, though, is seared in my brain. It was past one in the morning, and Sherrod and I were lying in bed, wide awake.

  “I can’t sleep,” he said, his eyes a map of red lines.

  “I can’t either,” I said, my own eyes on fire from fatigue.

  “Tell me a story,” he said.

  We talked past three before falling asleep holding hands.

  Neither of us remembers a single word.

  twenty-one

  An Offer You Can’t Refuse

  THE SATURDAY AFTER THE ELECTION, SHERROD SNAPPED SHUT HIS flip cell phone and shot me a sheepish grin.

  “We have to go to the White House.”

  “No, we don’t,” I said.

  He frowned.

  I called his frown and raised him a scowl. “You said so.”

  An e-mail invitation had arrived the day before at Sherrod’s office:

  THE WHITE HOUSE IS PLEASED TO

  INVITE YOU AND YOUR SPOUSE TO A

  RECEPTION FOR NEWLY ELECTED

  MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2006

  5:00 P.M.–6:00 P.M.

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  STATE FLOOR

  Sherrod had forwarded the e-mail to me, adding, “Connie? I assume the answer is no.” I immediately responded with praise for his uncanny insight on how to preserve a marriage and thought the issue was closed. After a year on the campaign trail, I’d had it up to my feathered bangs with frozen smiles and good behavior. I didn’t want to spend another millisecond pretending the Republican efforts to annihilate my husband were just fine, really, if you don’t count all the character assassinations, living for months on end under the threat of a “divorce ad,” and that whole Bananajuana scandal.

  “Forget it,” I said.

  Soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, however, had other ideas, which we soon found out when Joanna called Sherrod on Saturday.

  “Harry wants us to go,” Sherrod said after the call. “It’s a gesture of good intention, it shows we want to work with the other side, that we’re putting all the nastiness of the campaign behind us and will work together to get things done.”

  Add a good soundtrack, and we would have had ourselves another campaign ad.

  Even as I sighed, though, I knew Sherrod—and Reid—were right. It was time to build bridges, not lob grenades. I also knew I needed to make this easy for Sherrod, to show my unequivocal support if he was willing to stand face-to-face with the man who’d spent the last six years steering our country in the wrong direction, not to mention raising $2 million for Sherrod’s opponent. This, I realized, was my first test as a senator’s wife.

  “I’ll hate every minute of it,” I said, on the brink of flunking.

  “But you’ll go?”

  “I’ll go.”

  (C for effort, maybe?)

  THAT MONDAY MORNING, WE FLEW TO WASHINGTON. AS WE DESCENDED, the butterflies did their usual flap-and-flutter around my heart at the sight of the Capitol dome, but I resisted my usual in-air ritual of whispering, “Hi, honey,” mainly because my honey was sitting right next to me. Most times when I fly to Washington, Sherrod is already there, already working, and the sight of that dome always makes me think of him. At such moments, I’m reduced to this act of silliness, but then I always tell myself there’s not a happily coupled person alive who doesn’t do something goofy on a regular basis in the name of love. That’s what I tell myself, anyway, and so far, it’s worked.

  Sherrod blissfully rejected any notion that his life should change on the brink of senatorhood, even as we agreed to stay at the same hotel with all the newly elected senators rather than in our Washington apartment. He had under-packed as usual, throwing into his duffel bag two days’ worth of socks and underwear for a four-day stay. He planned to wash them out in the shower as he always does.

  I, on the other hand, packed for a two-week trip to just about any climate you could imagine. Whenever I feel my life is spiraling into chaos, I focus on the one thing I can still control: my clothes.

  It speaks to the growth in our marriage that Sherrod no longer puts me through his speech about how he learned during his Eagle Scout days to pack only what he could carry on his back—“and then you cut that in half,” he loved to say. Even he could see that I was forever cured of the supposed wonders of that neat trick after taking his advice for a seven-day trip to Moscow, where I spent far too much time trying to dry my sodden clothes with a hair dryer.

  Our first event was a photo op with Senators Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer and all the senators-elect, except for Claire McCaskill, who had the nerve to take care of herself and go on vacation with her husband. Apparently, spouses were not supposed to attend, but nobody told me that, and so I showed up at Reid’s office with Sherrod and immediately was introduced to Bernie Sanders’s wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders. Sometimes you just know God did you a favor, and that’s how I felt the moment I met Jane in the reception area. She is kind and down-to-earth, and not afraid to admit when she’s nervous, which is a nice balance to someone like me. When I’m nervous I’m a toddler behind the wheel of a tank, which can really mislead others into thinking you know what you’re doing at the precise moment when you have no clue. Sometimes it works, sometimes it gets you the night shift.

  Jane smiled, shook my hand, and whispered, “I don’t think we’re supposed to be here.”

  “Why not?”

  “They said this is only for the senators.”

  Oh, those pesky “they” again. I’d had my fill of people half my age telling me what I could and couldn’t do. As Sherrod headed back to join his future Democratic colleagues in the Senate, he turned around and motioned for me to join him.

  “C’mon,” I said to Jane, looping my arm through hers. “We’re not going to miss this. We’re going in.”

  It was quite a sight, seeing all of those newly elected senators together for the first time. Sherrod kept shooting me grins as he shook hands with Jim Webb of Virginia; Jon Tester of Montana; Ben Cardin of Maryland; Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; Bob Casey of Pennsylvania; Bernie Sanders of Vermont; and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. We met two other renegade spouses, too, Myrna Edelman Cardin and Sharla Tester; apparently they hadn’t gotten their marching orders, either. Amy Klobuchar pointed at me and joked that her husband, dutifully ensconced back at the hotel, had been “out-spoused” again.

 
After a few minutes, Reid and Schumer said it was time to meet the press. The doors opened to our left and out the senators walked, greeted by an onslaught of camera firepower as they settled into chairs arranged in a tight semicircle.

  “Let’s get the wives out here,” Reid said after a few moments, and the four of us joined them. I stood behind Sherrod, put my hands on his shoulders, and tried to ignore the cameras and not cry with pride. Multitasking as usual.

  Most newspapers that ran the shot the next day used one without the wives, which didn’t surprise me after a year of campaign coverage. It also was an appropriate record of such a historic moment. My favorite photo from the shoot, by Melina Mara, ran in the next day’s Washington Post. In it, Sharla Tester was pressing her cheek against her man’s head, beaming as she wrapped one arm around his wide, laughing face. I’m to their left, behind Sherrod, standing stiff as a fencepost. I admired and envied Sharla’s unabashed glee.

  The still photographers were ordered out for the TV cameras, and as they lighted up the room, Sherrod pointed to our dear Joanna, who was standing against the wall smiling and blinking back tears. She had already left the campaign staff and was back in Sherrod’s office on Capitol Hill, setting up interviews with other senators’ communications directors to prepare for the transition from the House to the Senate. When we teased her later, she shook her head and welled up again.

  “I just can’t believe you’re here,” she told Sherrod. “I can’t believe we did it.”

  After the shoot, we headed for a shuttle van, which stopped at the Madison Hotel to pick up the spouses who knew how to follow instructions. We were also joined by the only Republican senator-elect, Bob Corker, and his wife, Elizabeth. In a spirit of bipartisanship, the whole busload of Democrats reached across the aisle and welcomed them. Emily Reynolds, performing her final duties as secretary of the Senate under Republican leadership, counted our heads and recited our names, and then the driver pulled away from the curb.

  We were on our way to the White House.