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The Columnist Who Shut Up to Speak Out
"I'm having to rein myself in," says Connie Schultz of her role as wife to Rep. Sherrod Brown.
(By Joanna Kuebler/The Post)
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Schultz smilingly reports that a woman had advised her to keep an eye on her man, what with the availability in Washington of so many alluring women-not-his-wife. Brown sees many good reasons not to stray, not least Schultz's megaphone -- and her proven willingness to use it.
"I have already said to people," Brown says, "if I ever did anything, she wouldn't just cut my [testicles] off. She'd write about it."
Smitten by Her Words
The citation with Schultz's Pulitzer for commentary praised "her pungent columns that provided a voice for the underdog and underprivileged."
Two weeks after she began writing her column in October 2002, she received an e-mail from one "Sherrod Brown, Lorain, Ohio." It read: "Where did the Plain Dealer find you? You are a breath of fresh air; your writing reminds me of that of Barbara Kingsolver, one of my favorite living writers."
Brown read Schultz's first column aloud at the Thanksgiving dinner table. It was about her father, for 36 years an electric company worker. It began, "I want Dad's lunch pail."
"To Dad, it's a daily reminder of the job he hated," wrote Schultz. "To me, it is an enduring symbol of the promise he made to his four young children. 'You kids are never going to carry one of these to work,' he'd tell us, over and over. 'You kids are going to college.' "
Schultz is a mother of two who graduated from Kent State and quit law school after two years. She writes about coat-check attendants whose tips are siphoned by management. She urges respect for valet parkers and better health care for the uninsured. She quotes her mother's admonition: "Don't marry him till you see how he treats the waitress."
She wrote in one column that on the Sunday after Ohio voters banned same-sex marriage, straight members of her congregation wept as more than 50 gay worshipers stood to show they had been affected by the legislation.
"They didn't look angry or defiant," she wrote. "They looked abandoned."
Brown is a self-described battler for the little guy. First elected to the Ohio House at 21, he has been a politician ever since. He fought fiercely against NAFTA and voted against the Iraq war resolution and the Patriot Act. He spotted the makings of a soul mate in Schultz's politics and her tolerant Christian faith -- she belongs to the United Church of Christ; he is Lutheran.
Daughters Emily and Liz saw it right away.
"He would read us her columns over the phone," says Emily, 25, a union organizer on leave to work in the campaign. "Liz and I were, 'Clearly, you should just ask this woman out, Dad.' "
