Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood's Choice Leader

By 5 p.m., at the end of the day, Richards found herself hanging out with a group of teens at the Ophelia Egypt Program Center, a refuge funded by Planned Parenthood and housed in an old shoe store in a strip mall at Benning Road and Minnesota Avenue NE.

Many of the kids at the youth center are from two nearby housing projects, Benning Terrace and Langston Terrace, and as a group of girls cut pictures and words from magazines and made collages, Richards knelt beside them and talked. Later, she perched on a couch, her wool plaid blazer a pink spot of preppy between a 16-year-old boy's black North Face and a 15-year-old girl's beige nylon coat. Richards was playing "Madden NFL 06" on the center's PlayStation 2.

"You're right there," the 16-year-old pointed out helpfully, his braids hanging below his skullcap.

"Oh," Richards said, sounding surprised and gripping the controller as her team, the Falcons, lined up against the Redskins. "That's him?"

A few plays later, her quarterback was sacked. She turned apologetically to her partner. "I was trying to go around," she said, sounding abashed. "I knew that wasn't a good idea to go backwards."

Soon, Richards and the girl had decamped for the foosball table, where Richards spent about 10 minutes engrossed in a serious game. There were no cameras. Her entourage was elsewhere in the room. The kids didn't really understand who she was: a woman who oversees 270 employees at the national level and heads up an organization with 120 affiliates and 850 health-care clinics.

As the clock ticked toward 6, and a homeless woman wandered into the center and was given a plate of food, Richards remained engrossed in the foosball table. Her team was losing, badly, 9-1. But Richards kept battling. Moments later, it was 9-2. Then 9-3.

"Okay," she said, still leaning intently over the game, "we'll do one more, then I'm going home to feed my kids."