. . . And His Lovely Wife (5 page)

I won't pretend your cartoon wasn't devastating, at least to me. I've been one of your biggest fans. I've been silent about all the rest of this week's coverage about a staffer's mistake, even though I thought it was blown entirely out of proportion, and probably because he is married to me. But today's cartoon, by you, was a sucker punch. I would never, ever have expected you to depict Sherrod in such an unfair and ugly way.

Just so you know, Sherrod remains a hero to so many. Especially to me.

Darcy never responded, but it made its way to editor-in-chief Doug Clifton. When I found out that Clifton had forwarded it to my department supervisor—who told me she defended me as a loyal wife—I dragged myself into Clifton's office.

“I know I shouldn't have sent that note to Darcy,” I said.

Clifton nodded. He looked weary, not angry.

“It's only going to get harder here for you, Connie, and you're going to have to keep your feelings out of this.”

“Or I'm going to have to leave,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Let's hope that doesn't happen.”

Later that evening, Joanna sent an e-mail to Sherrod that gave both of us a chance to take a deep breath and reminded us of what has always mattered most.

This is so beside anything relevant, but in light of our day, I thought I would share. I was at the store tonight and the cashier, who I know by face, chatted with me in our normal exchange of pleasantries. She saw my ID and asked where I worked. I told her I work for a Congressman from Ohio. We exchanged laments about our day and joked about finding a money tree.

I started to walk away when it occurred to me that I didn't know her name, despite my having “chatted” with her for more than two years.

I stopped, turned around and introduced myself. Her name is Chantale. We shook hands.

As I left the store, it honestly occurred to me that I learned that from you and Connie. And how much better the world would be if we all did that more.

I say this only because we are having a really rough time, but in the end, you guys are to the core something that is so rare, and what you both have makes a difference in the world.

I printed Joanna's e-mail, folded it into a tight square, and tucked it into my wallet for the long months ahead.

three

“I Want You to Be Wallpaper”

T
HE TURMOIL FOR ME AT
T
HE
P
LAIN
D
EALER, BOTH INSIDE MY
head and in the newsroom, seemed to increase with each passing week of Sherrod's campaign.

“I want you to be wallpaper,” said Doug Clifton.

Doug was concerned that my presence, however passive, at Sherrod's campaign events could be interpreted as
Plain Dealer
support for Sherrod's candidacy. I told Doug most people would think I was standing alongside my husband because I was his wife. Besides, for the three years I'd been writing a column, I had been the far right's punching bag. It wasn't as if my politics were a mystery to even the most casual reader.

Yet I could appreciate Doug's skittishness. He was the one who would get the plaintive e-mails from readers—both inside and outside the newsroom, as it turned out—and, ultimately, the burden of me rested with him. I kept fighting this urge to apologize to him for falling in love in the first place. Instead, I assured him that I would abide by his dictate and blend into the background as best I could, even though what he suggested was quite a departure for me.

For the first four months of Sherrod's race, I looked far less engaged in the campaign than did the political groupies who aimed their cell phone cameras at us everywhere we went. I was wallpaper.

This did not, however, stop bloggers—and occasionally a colleague—from claiming otherwise. In early December,
Plain Dealer
reporter Bill Sloat, who lived and worked five hours away in Cincinnati, wrote Clifton an e-mail after he saw a story in the Cincinnati
Enquirer
that mentioned I had attended a church service where Sherrod spoke.

Clifton said Sloat told him he had no idea Sherrod and I were married, and that our marriage was going to complicate the life of every
Plain Dealer
reporter covering Sherrod's race.

“Will each reporter on the political beat eventually end up having to explain that what Connie does on her own time is her own business (as it is, of course)?” wrote Sloat. “Is it time for
The Plain Dealer
to explain that publicly, and up-front, now that the campaign has started?”

“Does he not read the paper he writes for?” I asked Clifton, who had called me into his office. I found it curious that Sloat had told Clifton he didn't even know Sherrod and I were married.
The Plain Dealer
had mentioned our marriage in several stories. In November 2005, I had devoted an entire column to our engagement after Clifton insisted that our society writer, Sarah Crump, cover it in her column.

Clifton shrugged his shoulders. “I think he raised important issues and I should write about them. We have to make sure readers know that we're aware of potential conflicts and that you and I agree on the boundaries.”

Clifton's column, titled “Happy Couple Raise Issues in Newsroom,” ran on
The Plain Dealer
's op-ed page on Thursday, December 8, 2005. Doug showed it to me first, which I appreciated, and he didn't throw me out of his office when I said, yet again, that I thought an entire column about my marriage was overreacting.

Clifton outlined the potential conflicts, for me and for the paper. He mentioned Sherrod's primary race against “a promising young Democrat” named Paul Hackett. The “Brown-Schultz marriage will go from—for us—a sometimes ouchy, low-visibility one to one that is likely to become increasingly painful.”

After several paragraphs about the unfortunate position I'd put him in, Clifton ended by assuring readers we all knew how to do our jobs:

I have neither the ability to influence Sherrod Brown's conduct, nor the intent. But I do have influence over Connie and, happily, we're on the same page.

She has a keen understanding of the delicate position she—and our paper—are in. She understands that she can't both campaign for her husband and write a column. And I understand that she is a supportive spouse who will be at her candidate husband's side from time to time.

If there comes a time when Connie feels her obligations as the wife of a candidate require a more visible presence on the campaign, she will take a leave of absence. Meanwhile, look for Connie in her twice-weekly column, not campaigning for Sherrod Brown.

And understand that Connie's relationship with candidate Brown will have no influence—for or against—our coverage of his campaign.

Clifton's column got wide coverage in media circles, and I received many supportive e-mails from journalists—mostly women—from around the country. The basic theme of the letters: Don't you give up your career.

Once Clifton's column appeared, I never stopped having to answer the insult wrapped in a question, universally posed only by men: Can Connie Schultz write her own opinions when she's married to Sherrod Brown? I know he didn't intend for that to happen, and I don't hold it against Clifton. But it did make me cranky for a long, long time.

F
OR THE NEXT FEW WEEKS,
I
REMAINED IN THE BACKGROUND AT
public events, but I was increasingly involved behind the scenes in the campaign. I took on so many additional responsibilities while trying to maintain a full-time schedule of column writing—not to mention navigating the increasingly rocky terrain of permissible topics—that the pace started to take a toll on both my nerves and my energy.

I was straddling two worlds, not taking up residence in either of them, and feeling lost much of the time. When I look back on it, I can see that what I most feared was that the Connie I knew—the writer I had known for years—was evaporating. I looked at the long road ahead and thought,
Wow, I could lose the marriage I cherish, the career I love, and the me I know, by the time this campaign is over.
It seemed like a lot to lose.

Gone were our late-night talks about everything, big and small, that had filled our days. No more walk-and-talks around the neighborhood, no end-of-the-week surprises when Sherrod would burst through the door shouting “I caught an early plane!” Most nights now, when he wasn't in session in Washington, he didn't drag through the door until almost midnight, if at all. Ohio is a big state, and often he stayed in a hotel so he wouldn't have to get up before five to get to the next day's first event. He wanted to be home every night, but doing so would wear him out long before the May primary took place.

Our entire life together had shifted. Now every conversation, no matter where it started, ended up being about the campaign. It was all politics, all the time, and it takes extraordinary discipline to maintain that level of focus without feeling that you've lost sight of everything else that matters in life. Every day, we told ourselves this race could help change the direction of the country. Most days, that was enough.

Instead of charging ahead to sort out all that was happening, I chipped away at myself, refusing to even admit how scared I was. My range of column topics got more and more narrow for fear of looking as if I were using my newspaper column to stump for my husband. My conversations with colleagues became fewer and narrower, too, because I had morphed from a colleague to a source. I didn't want to put them in a position of learning something through friendship that they knew they should put to use as journalists.

I also surrendered our social life to a scheduler, who was now planning our every night and weekend. Sometimes that was the hardest part of my life to give up, and I didn't always deal with it well. One incident in particular comes to mind.

It probably didn't help that I first learned about it after spending a grueling weekend folded in the backseat of the campaign car. Add to that a full day camped out at University Hospitals for my father's surgery on one of his two blocked carotid arteries. Even if I had spent the previous three days curled up in bed with a week's supply of Dom Perignon and Bugles—my idea of comfort food—I doubt I would have been a good sport about this one: The campaign had scheduled an out-of-town fundraiser on our second wedding anniversary.

I seldom asked for personal time with Sherrod. This was an exception, and one I didn't think needed much explaining beyond my saying, “Please keep this date open.” I realize this may mark me a sappy romantic, but I think a middle-aged couple ought to celebrate the day they thumbed their noses at the failure rates of second marriages and declared their devotion for as long as they both shall live. Considering that we were forty-six and fifty-one at the time, we figured the odds were in our favor on that one.

As happens so often in campaigns, this snafu was somebody else's fault. The scheduler blamed the fundraiser and the fundraiser blamed the scheduler, and behind my back they both blamed me for being impossible to deal with.

What bothered me most was my reaction to this depressing news: Instead of feeling blue because my husband would be away on our special day, my mind immediately rocketed to the possible press coverage. What if a reporter found out that the Senate candidate who was supposed to be so in love with his bride blew off their anniversary to raise money? So what, some would say. But you never knew what could become a snarky item in a metro brief or on a newspaper's blog.

I imagined the press call: “You say you're running a values-driven campaign, Congressman, but you're dumping your wife on your anniversary? What kind of family values are those?”

“Is this why you kept your own name, Ms. Schultz?…Ms. Schultz?”

Two days later, I discovered that Sherrod was also scheduled to be in New York on April 19, the night we were to celebrate the publication of my first book. Random House was publishing a collection of my columns,
Life Happens,
and I had asked them to launch the book tour at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cleveland, out of loyalty to the town I called home. Hundreds of people were expected to attend
—in Cleveland, which is in Ohio, which is where he is running for senator,
I emphasized to the campaign scheduler and fundraiser, who were too busy blaming each other again to listen to the not-so-lovely wife, who was just impossible to deal with anyway.

When I told Sherrod, he shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know how this happened,” he said.

The following week, I went to a private lunch before a “Women of Excellence” panel discussion with three prominent Cleveland women. One of the panelists turned to me and asked, “How does a marriage survive a Senate race?”

Still stinging from the botched wedding anniversary, I wanted to say, “I'll let you know.”

Bad idea. So not the political-wife thing to do.

So, instead, I tried to sound as if I had it all figured out. “It's important for a couple to be cognizant of the pressures and mindful of the need to recalibrate when things get out of hand,” I said as they all nodded.

Oh, hell,
I thought.
Even I don't believe me.

“Actually, I want to bounce something off you,” I said to the three women I had just met. They leaned in, and I told them about the scheduling problems.

“That has to change,” one of them said.

“You have to set the ground rules right now,” another said. “No one screws with the wife.”

“Yeah?” I said, quickly warming to my new sistahs.

“Yeah,” they all said, nodding their heads and waving their forks in the air.

“Yeah,” I said, waving my own fork now. I made a mental note to call Sherrod as soon as I was back in the car.

By the time I pulled out of the parking lot, though, Sherrod was calling me.

“I changed the schedule,” he said, sounding as if he'd just won a seven-way primary. “I told them no to both, baby. We're going out to dinner for our anniversary, and I'm going to be front and center at your book signing. You won't be able to miss me: I'll be the tired guy trying not to cry at the sight of you.”

         

F
OR NEARLY FOUR MONTHS,
I
TOLD MYSELF THAT NO
S
ENATE RACE,
not even my husband's, was going to interfere with my column, which ran twice a week. It felt like the only thing left of my previous life, and I clung to it. My usual practice was to write first drafts by 11
A.M
., then e-mail them to my editor and my computer at work. I'd drive the thirty minutes to the newsroom in downtown Cleveland for the final edit. Most other days I was either out interviewing or working the phone in the newsroom.

That schedule worked fine before I was sitting in on one early-morning conference call after another for the campaign during the week and then spending entire weekends on the road with Sherrod. Twice in early February, I drove into the
Plain Dealer
parking garage, turned off the car, and promptly fell asleep. It gets mighty cold during Cleveland winters, and I could count on shivering myself awake within a half-hour or so. I also started dozing behind the wheel in shopping centers a lot after work. I tried telling myself there was nothing at all unusual about falling asleep in various parking lots around northeast Ohio, but one conversation with a close friend, Dr. Gaylee McCracken, cured me of that little bit of magical thinking.