lady of the house - new times broward-palm beach

8/3/2019 Lady of the House - New Times Broward-Palm Beach

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C. STILES

Hillary Clinton's campaign has relied on Wasserman Schultz to

attack its enemies.

AFP PHOTO / ROBYN BECK / NEWSCOM

Hillary Clinton's campaign has relied on Wasserman Schultz to

Lady of the HouseShe's got three kids, 650,000 constituents, andmillions of watching eyes. Debbie WassermanSchultz can't keep them all happy.By Thomas Francispublished: May 29, 2008

Debbie Wasserman Schultz's political acumen has

never been in doubt. Nor has her ambition. At 26,

she became the youngest woman ever elected to the

Florida Legislature. A decade later, she decided torun for U.S. Congress representing the district

around her Weston home despite having just

given birth to her third child. She had two not-very-

secret weapons: a war chest of a quarter-million

dollars, and a reputation as a dogged campaigner

and fundraiser. She went unopposed in the

Democratic primary and entered Congress in 2004

at the ripe old age of 37. A few months after her

arrival in Washington, Wasserman Schultz emerged

as the Democrats' voice of reason in the frenzieddebate over whether Terri Schiavo should remain in

a vegetative state. She further endeared herself to

party leaders in 2006 by helping friend Ron Klein

unseat longtime Republican legislator Clay Shaw of

Fort Lauderdale. Wasserman Schultz was appointed

to the powerful House Committee on Appropriations

and was made the party's deputy majority whip, as

well as the co-chair of its Red to Blue Program,

aimed at converting Republican congressional

districts to Democrats.

"It's assumed that she will be angling for a

leadership position in the House before long," says

David Wasserman (no relation), an editor for the

Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan website that

specializes in analyzing elections. He notes that both

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader

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attack its enemies.

C. STILES

After a week wrangling with Republicans, Wasserman Schultz

tries to corral her daughter's Brownie troop.

UPI Photo/Martin Fried/Newscom

Rep. Alcee Hastings, an admirer, has expressed concern about

Wasserman Schultz's balancing act.

Steny Hoyer have served in Congress a long time. As

she accumulates seniority, Wasserman Schultz looks

like an heir apparent. Given her meteoric rise, there

are even those who suspect that the 41-year-old

Jewish mom from the West Broward 'burbs has set

her sights on an even higher prize.

But you don't become a big player in Washington

without becoming an even bigger target. Wasserman

Schultz learned that in March, when she was

lambasted in the liberal blogosphere and the press

for deciding not to campaign on behalf of

Democratic contenders looking to unseat

Republican incumbents in three congressional races

in Miami-Dade County. She insisted her decision

was based on the desire to work with Republicans

who could help her win policies favorable to South

Florida, but her critics claimed she cared more about

appeasing the powerful Cuban exile community,

which helped bankroll the campaigns of those

Miami-Dade Republican incumbents and which

has donated heavily to Wasserman Schultz.

More recently, her role as a national co-chair of

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has placed

her at the center of another controversy. Clinton's last hope to capture the nomination may

depend on the results of a meeting this Saturday, at which the Democratic Party Rules

Committee will consider what to do about the results of the previously disqualified Floridaprimary. Wasserman Schultz has advocated counting both the votes and delegates, a position

that puts her on the sinking side of a political fault line that divides her party.

Regardless of that outcome, political observers insist Wasserman Schultz remains one of

only a handful of women positioned to follow in the footsteps of Pelosi and, perhaps

someday, Clinton herself. The question is how high she wants to go and at what price?

Wasserman Schultz got her political blunders out of the way early. She ran for student

council twice as a teenager in Long Island and lost both times. She hasn't lost an election

since. Wasserman majored in political science at the University of Florida and stayed in

Gainesville to enter a poli sci master's program. She spent her summers interning for

politicians and found herself intrigued by the role of legislative aides, who research policy

issues and respond to constituents' demands. Before the final year of her master's program,

she sent out 180 rsums, split between legislators in her native New York and her adopted

home of Florida. That yielded five interviews. "Wherever I got a job, that's where I was

moving," she says. "I wanted it that badly."



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One of those interviews was with Florida legislator Peter Deutsch. "I was a state

representative then, and I didn't have a position to hire anyone," Deutsch recalls, "but her

rsum was so outstanding this woman seemed off the charts." By the end of the

interview, he had offered the 23-year-old a summer job on his campaign. Two weeks later,

Deutsch's legislative aide resigned, and he offered the job to Wasserman Schultz.

In 1992, when Deutsch decided to abandon his seat in the Florida Legislature to run for U.S.Congress, he phoned Wasserman Schultz, who was recently married, to recommend she run

for the seat he was vacating. She was thrilled and apprehensive. "I was 25," she says.

"Most of the members of the House were old enough to be my parents or my

grandparents."

Her rival candidates and the party's kingmakers preached patience. "All the powers-that-be

said, 'It's not your turn,' " Wasserman Schultz remembers. Five other Democrats entered the

race. That campaign would become the stuff of Florida political legend. For six months, in

the early evening hours of every day, Wasserman Schultz walked her district, knocking on

doors. A petite woman to begin with, the exertion cost her 18 pounds, plunging her weight

into double digits. Her husband began making her chocolate milk shakes to keep her from

missing dinners. Wasserman Schultz won the race in spectacular fashion, defeating her

closest primary opponent by 31 points.

That mandate didn't carry much weight with the older male Republicans who formed the

majority of the state's Legislature. They mocked the bills she drafted like the one to make

dry cleaners charge men the same rates they charged women as "flaky." But those same

causes played well in her district, where liberalandfeministwere not slurs. So did her

staunch support of abortion rights.

During this period, Wasserman Schultz began to earn a reputation for being... well, the wordused most commonly wasfeisty. To feminists, that adjective comes with a whiff of

condescension. "But I am feisty," Wasserman Schultz stresses. "Feisty to me is a tremendous

compliment. I really pride myself on not being afraid to stand alone."

She also prides herself on being aggressive when it comes to fundraising. "For women,

fundraising is often a struggle," she says. "They have a hard time asking." Her war chests

helped ward off Democratic challengers throughout her years in the state Legislature. And

they helped in 2004, when she ran for Congress in Florida's 20th District, which stretches

from Plantation down to Miami Beach. It also didn't hurt that her mentor, Deutsch, was

leaving the seat to run for the U.S. Senate. Remarkably, Wasserman Schultz ran unopposed

in the primary and won the largely Democratic district handily. (Ironically, Deutsch lost his

bid for the Senate, narrowly, and has since left politics.)

A few months after Wasserman Schultz arrived in Washington, a political furor erupted over

Terri Schiavo, the Floridian who had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years.

Schiavo's family wanted her to be kept alive by feeding tube. Her husband wanted the tube

removed, claiming this is what she would have wanted. Wasserman Schultz was thrust into



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the role of Democratic spokeswoman not just because she had dealt with the Schiavo

question when it came up in the Florida Legislature in 2003 but because she had recently

had a personal experience similar to the Schiavos' her husband's aunt had also been kept

alive through feeding tubes, which the family decided should be removed.

Only two months after she was sworn in to office, Wasserman Schultz found herself on

national news programs such as The Today Show opposing soon-to-be House MajorityLeader Rep. Roy Blunt. "My family had to go through this exact same decision, and they

would have found it incredibly offensive for Congress or any legislative body to insert

themselves into our family business," she told anchor Ann Currie. "And if it could happen to

Terri Schiavo's family, it could happen to any of us."

Like most of her Wednesdays in Washington, April 30 was a chaotic day for Wasserman

Schultz. She spent hours darting among meetings with lobbyists, news conferences,

committee hearings, strategy sessions with staff members, and tte--ttes with eminent

figures like Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Lunch was a Snickers bar. Dinner was a

fundraiser. And the working day didn't end till after 10 p.m., when Wasserman Schultzdelivered a speech from the floor of Congress about American troop deployments to Iraq. If

the congresswoman's kids wanted to see their mother before they went to bed this night,

they'd have had to flip on C-SPAN.

Of all her duties on that Wednesday, the one Wasserman Schultz tackled with the most relish

was a hastily organized Count Our Votes rally. The event consisted of a few hundred

Floridians who had boarded buses late the previous evening and driven through the night so

they could assemble themselves in front of the Democratic National Committee

headquarters, where they chanted at the office window of party Chairman Howard Dean.

The protesters were angry that the DNC had stripped Florida of its delegates as punishmentfor the state Legislature's decision to move up the date of its presidential primary.

Wasserman Schultz's press secretary dropped her off at a barricade a block from the rally,

and another staffer met her halfway, shouting instructions to her over the din of "Count!

Our! Votes! A bounce in her step, the congresswoman disappeared into a thicket of placards

and reappeared at the podium. "Do you think we can win Florida without counting Florida?"

she yelled to the crowd. "No!" it yelled back. After a few similar refrains, she exited to cheers.

Wasserman Schultz never mentioned Hillary Clinton to the crowd; she didn't have to.

Even before superdelegates had become a buzzword, Wasserman Schultz had locked in her

vote for Clinton, whom she considers a role model. "Her generation, the effort and stridesthey have made, that's what made it possible for me to run for the state Legislature when I

was 25 years old," Wasserman Schultz stresses. "The path they blazed made my success

possible."

In a political season that has seen some of Clinton's staunchest allies defect to her glamorous

rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Wasserman Schultz has emerged not just as an ally but as



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an enforcer. Back in March, when an Obama adviser, Samantha Power, referred to Clinton as

a "monster," it was Wasserman Schultz who fired back, citing the remark as evidence that

the Obama campaign's talk of hope smacked of hypocrisy. Soon after, Power stepped down.

Prominent Democrats, including South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, who as House

majority whip works with Wasserman Schultz, have made public pleas for Clinton to tone

down her attacks on Obama lest she cause a rift in the party coalition that cannot be fused intime for the general election.

An increasing number of superdelegates have thrown their support behind Obama citing not

just the need for a unified party but their dismay at the negative tone of Clinton's campaign,

which has tried to undermine support for Obama by suggesting he isn't prepared to assume

the presidency and seizing on his associations with controversial figures such as his former

pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Wasserman Schultz, on the other hand, has been unwavering in her support. "I don't think

the tone of [Clinton's] campaign has been one way or the other," the congresswoman says.

"She's been talking about issues that matter most to Americans: health care, Iraq, theeconomy."

Earlier this month, in the days leading up to the Indiana primary, Clinton's campaign touted

a plan originally championed by Republican nominee John McCain calling for a

suspension of the federal gas tax as a way of giving consumers a temporary break from fuel

costs. Economists, politicians, and pundits were nearly unanimous in dismissing the plan as

a pander. Wasserman Schultz went on cable news programs to defend Clinton. "I'm a

minivan mom," she said on CNN'sLarry King Live. "And the last time I filled up my

minivan the one I use to drive my kids around my district it cost me $67. What Hillary's

plan will do is put $70 potentially back into the pockets of people and make sure that theycan put food on the table that week."

The following week, after the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, or

NARAL, gave its endorsement to Obama, Wasserman Schultz made another appearance at

the DNC headquarters. "We feel abandoned by this organization today," said the

congresswoman, a leading proponent of women's reproductive rights. Later, she told an

MSNBC reporter that NARAL made a "mistake beyond proportion."

But it is Wasserman Schultz's role in the wake of the Florida's primary-that-wasn't that has

taken center stage in the past few weeks. Months ago, both Clinton and Obama accepted the

DNC's ruling to strip Florida of its delegates, and both signed pledges vowing not tocampaign in Florida. Of course, both sides would accuse the other of fudging on that pledge

Obama's national TV spots aired in Florida while Clinton made personal appearances at

fundraisers.

In January, Clinton won the Florida primary with 50 percent of the vote to Obama's 33. She

stood to gain some 36 pledged delegates and 300,000 votes. Counting those delegates and



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votes has become increasingly vital to Clinton's dimming hopes of persuading uncommitted

superdelegates that she can catch Obama, whose victory in last week's Oregon primary gave

him a seemingly insurmountable majority of pledged delegates heading into the August

nominating convention.

Clinton spent an entire day in Florida last week, hoping to publicize her cause. Wasserman

Schultz, meanwhile, provided some pointed media backup. "I think it's really disappointingthat Barack Obama spoke to 15,000 Floridians today within the state and said absolutely

nothing about whether he thinks Florida's delegation should be seated," she told Fox News.

"In fact, he's never said from his mouth that Florida's delegation should be seated at the

convention, and that's incredibly disappointing."

Clinton's last-ditch push to requalify the Florida results, and those from a similar primary in

Michigan, has rankled party leaders, who had hoped to have a nominee months ago. Not

only has Clinton pledged to stay in the race but she's stressed her appeal to white, rural, and

working-class voters and voiced concerns about staking the party's presidential hopes on

Obama, an African-American who has performed poorly among those voters.

All of this has placed Wasserman Schultz in a sticky situation. No one would question her

desire to ensure that Floridians have a voice in the selection of the party's nominee for

president. But her full-throated advocacy particularly in the face of Clinton's original

pledge not to campaign in Florida has struck some as damaging to the party's chances of

recapturing the White House.

"As Obama secures the nomination, the pressure is going to be on her to step up to the plate

and work with the nominee," notes Joe Sudbay, a political consultant based in Washington,

D.C., who is a frequent contributor toAMERICAblog.com.

For her part, Wasserman Schultz refuses to accept the prevailing math. Even as the media

look ahead to an Obama/McCain matchup, she insists Clinton can and will prevail. And she

sounds unconcerned about any political fallout. "I don't do things based on any supposed

'leadership track,' " she says. "I follow my heart. I stand up for what I believe in, and I believe

in Hillary Clinton."

But if Obama did win? "I will be supportive of whomever the nominee will be and give him or

her the full measure of my work ethic."

Her colleague, Rep. Robert Wexler, whose district spans portions of Broward and Palm

Beach counties, is in the opposite position. As co-chair of Obama's Florida campaign, hestands to have closer ties to the White House if the Illinois senator wins in November. "It's

wonderful to have a close relationship with the president when you're a member of

Congress," says Eric Johnson, Wexler's chief of staff.

The general feeling among political observers is best summed up by another legislative aide,

who asked not to be named: "Would her stock go up if Hillary were the nominee? Of course.



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But [Wasserman Schultz] works hard on the legislative side; she's been active and engaged in

a whole slew of committees and has earned the trust of the party leadership." That means

she'll remain a rising star after November, the aide says. Some have suggested that

Wasserman Schultz might even enjoy a privileged role as the Obama campaign seeks to win

the support of Clinton loyalists in a crucial swing state.

David Wasserman, of the Cook Political Report, says it's important to remember thatpresidential politics has little effect on the congressional pecking order. Wasserman Schultz

still has a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee, and she's still helping lead the

party's Red to Blue Program.

As co-chair of that ballyhooed program, Wasserman Schultz gets a national platform to

display her campaigning and fundraising talents. These attributes served both her and the

party well in 2006, when the congresswoman launched an offensive against Fort Lauderdale

Rep. Clay Shaw, a Republican who had 26 years' tenure to Wasserman Schultz's two. After

Shaw's defeat, Wasserman Schultz was cheered in liberal blogs for disregarding the

gentleman's agreement that calls for lawmakers to abstain from getting involved in races tooclose to their home district.

Those same observers expected Wasserman Schultz to stage an encore performance in 2008,

given that three long-held Republican congressional seats in Miami look vulnerable to upset.

Who better to throw her support behind local Democrats than the feisty Red to Blue

co-chair, who, after all, is running unopposed for reelection? But in early March, Wasserman

Schultz declared that she would not be campaigning aggressively for the Democratic

challengers.

A few hours after theMiami Heraldwrote about Wasserman Schultz's decision, the liberalblogosphere was in uproar. One popular website, the Swing State Project, posted a headline

that was typical of the tenor: "Wasserman Schultz wants Dem Challengers to lose." The

blog's senior editor went on to note: "Hey Debbie, there are no recusals in politics. If you

want to consider yourself a 'rising star' in the Democratic Party, don't think you can get away

with this." Similar posts appeared on other liberal blogs, such as the Huffington Post and

Daily Kos. Some readers demanded that the party remove Wasserman Schultz from the Red

to Blue Program. Others went further, proposing that another democratic candidate be

found to challenge her in 2010.

Wasserman Schultz had endured political blowback before, such as when she opposed

impeaching President George W. Bush in 2007. But never on this scale. Within a week, theWashington PostandHeraldhad both reported on the blog reactions.

The contested seats belong to Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, his brother Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart,

and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, all of whom are revered by South Florida's Cuban American

community for taking a hard line against the Castro regime in their native country.

Wasserman Schultz joins those Republicans on the Congressional Cuba Caucus. Her own



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hard line toward Cuba is an exception to an otherwise liberal voting record. In public

remarks, Wasserman Schultz has likened Cuban Americans' predicament to that of the

Jewish Americans like herself. Both groups, she says, extol democratic values that put them

at odds with extremists who revert to totalitarianism in the case of Castro's regime or

terrorism in the case of Hamas.

But in politics, such platitudes are rarely taken at face value, and it's worth noting that theU.S. Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee has been a major contributor to

Wasserman Schultz's campaigns. The PAC gave her $10,000 this past election cycle.

Individual members chipped in another $15,000.

Wasserman Schultz denies being influenced by the campaign contributions and insists that

she has supported the challengers in Miami just not in the high-profile way she did two

years ago. In fact, she says, she helped identify the local Dems who would run most

effectively. "The bloggers think I'm standing ready to sabotage [the candidates]," she says.

"On the contrary, I'm the one who validated them."

She has tried to stanch criticism by stressing her concern for Floridians, who she says arebetter-served if she has a good working relationship with all members of the state's

congressional delegation. "I have absolutely no hesitation to work against incumbent

Republican colleagues," Wasserman Schultz contends. "But in this particular case, these

districts are right next to mine, so I have to be careful."

So why did she abandon those same concerns to go after Shaw two years ago? "I never had a

relationship with Clay Shaw," she says. "I had worked for [Shaw's challenger] Ron Klein for

12 years in the state Legislature. It's a different set of circumstances." Party leaders such as

House Speaker Pelosi and Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel have issued statements in support of

the congresswoman's decision.

These explanations were not enough for local Democrats. Incoming Miami-Dade Democratic

Party Chairman Bret Berlin told reporters he was "appalled" by the decisions of Wasserman

Schultz and Rep. Kendrick Meek, a Miami Democrat who also refused to campaign for the

Democratic challengers. A post on the party's website by communications director Larry

Thorson asked, "Why are Democrats in perfectly safe seats not showing political courage?"

The challengers themselves have stayed silent on the matter or have sought to strike a

diplomatic tone. Democratic candidate Joe Garcia, a former executive director of the Cuban

American National Foundation who is running against Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, would say

only, "Debbie Wasserman Schultz and I have been friends for over two decades. I know herfrom her time on the staff of Peter Deutsch, and I expect to continue to have a very good

relationship with her." The same question draws a long silence from Annette Taddeo, a

Colombian-born businesswoman running against Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. She says only

that she is "confident that I will work with [Wasserman Schultz] in Congress on issues that

she feels strongly about." Raul Martinez, the former Hialeah mayor running against Lincoln

Diaz-Balart, did not return calls on the subject of Wasserman Schultz.



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Mauricio Claver-Carone, who chairs the U.S. Cuba Democracy PAC, calls the three Miami

Republicans the "most consistent leaders" on policy toward Cuba. But Claver-Carone denies

that his group would punish one of its Democratic champions, Wasserman Schultz, if she

joined the campaigns against those Republicans. "We don't get involved in interparty

politics," he says.

The consensus among those following the races is that the candidates would be unwise torun afoul of Wasserman Schultz. Such is her power as a fundraiser, campaigner, and

legislator. Not surprisingly, in the months since the brouhaha surfaced, local Democrats

have backpedaled. Chairman Berlin no longer sounds "appalled." This month, he called

Wasserman Schultz a "remarkable leader" who enjoys the unequivocal support of his

organization.

Wasserman Schultz is tough, focused, and, on those rare occasions when she's come under

attack, unflappable. But she has a strong defensive impulse on at least one front: her family.

With good reason. Wasserman Schultz is one of only ten mothers in Congress who have kidsunder the age of 13. In fact, she's the only mom in Congress who has three kids younger than

10. Even in this era of working moms, her schedule is remarkable. During a "good" week, she

spends Tuesday through Thursday night in Washington, leaving the care of her kids to her

husband. During a bad week, though, she's away for at least four days. And the time she does

spend at home is divided between her duties as a mother and a legislator. Her unorthodox

lifestyle has even become a campaign issue.

In her 2004 congressional campaign, she ran against a 58-year-old real-estate agent from

Davie named Margaret Hostetter, who criticized Wasserman Schultz for running for

Congress during a time that she had 4-year-old twins and a 1-year-old daughter at home. Ina recording posted on her website, Hostetter said, "Today women can do it all... just not at

the same time." Wasserman Schultz recognized that Hostetter was dangling bait. Still, she

says, "it took every ounce of self-control" not to respond. She waited for Election Day, when

she took 70 percent of the vote.

But the issue has persisted. Last month, Wasserman Schultz spent part of one weekday

morning at the Sagemont School, the private grade school in Weston where she had just had

parent-teacher conferences for her twin 9-year-olds, Jake and Rebecca. Her press secretary

picked her up. He brought along a copy of that day'sRoll Call, a widely read paper focused

on Capitol Hill. On the front page was a profile of Wasserman Schultz headlined "Florida's

Hurricane Force in the House." The story identified the congresswoman as a likely successorto Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the current chair of the Democratic National

Campaign Committee. The same position had been a star-making turn for Emanuel, the

Illinois congressman, and it would be another giant step for Wasserman Schultz.

But the story also included a quote from colleague Alcee Hastings that elicited a sigh from

Wasserman Schultz. Hastings, a Democrat from Miramar, praised her for combining her



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legislative duties with motherhood. But he also suggested that the promotion might

overwhelm her. Wasserman Schultz didn't think Hastings meant any harm. He's from an

older, more conservative generation, she noted. Still, she seemed eager to change the subject.

When Wasserman Schultz is at home, she throws herself into the arduous duties that come

with suburban child-rearing. On a recent Friday afternoon, for instance, she could be found

in the Sagemont courtyard, giving her daughter's Brownie troop a crash course in gardening,a necessary lesson if they're to earn their badges. The six girls all spoke loudly and

simultaneously and went dashing off in opposite directions. The congresswoman, for once,

seemed frazzled.

"It's really hard," she later admitted. "It was hard [Monday] night, when I was tucking my

kids in, when I knew I had to wake at 4:15 a.m. and leave the house at 5:30 a.m. and I wasn't

going to see them. They get really sad the night before they know I'm leaving for

Washington."

Her husband, Steve Schultz, an investment banker, drives the kids to school, then to softball

and diving classes on the days that Congress is in session. "Her being up there [inWashington], it's a little harder, but it's not the end of the world," Schultz says. "The kids are

used to it."

But while schedules can be juggled to accommodate the kids' biggest events, Wasserman

Schultz is haunted by the little ones that slip past her like the Mother's Day tea scheduled

for a Wednesday morning earlier this month. Wasserman Schultz's own mother attended in

her place, and 4-year-old Shelby didn't seem to mind until the congresswoman called that

night to ask how the tea time was and her daughter burst into tears. There's a lump in

Wasserman Schultz's throat as she tells that story.

Still, she insists, "I can't extricate myself from being a mother and I don't want to. I think

it's an asset. I bring a worldview to the table that is significantly underrepresented in this

body." Case in point: On that hectic April morning, shortly before the Count Our Votes rally,

Wasserman Schultz received a visit from several lobbyists of the beverage manufacturing

industry to her Capitol Hill office, which is, as you might expect, plastered with photos of her

husband and kids. They cautioned her about a looming piece of legislation that would

impose costly environmental regulations on their clients. But Wasserman Schultz was more

concerned with another regulation. "I was at my daughter's diving practice Monday, which is

at a high school in Cooper City, and I noticed there were vending machines full of every

sugary drink." The lobbyists spent the rest of the meeting on the defensive and left shortly

thereafter.

Indeed, it's hard to spend any time with Wasserman Schultz, especially in Washington, and

not be taken aback by her indomitable energy. And given that Pelosi a motheranda

grandmother is the person who controls her fate in Congress, it's hard to imagine that

being a mom will be held against her. But Wasserman Schultz insists she isn't "angling" for a

leadership post or looking beyond her current office in pursuit of a grander ambition.



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"I realize the trajectory I'm on makes it seem that I'm after all this stuff, and I'm so grateful

for the advances I've been able to make," she says, "but I'm really working this hard because

of how much I care about advancing our [Democratic] agenda." To the extent she benefits

from that by gaining a coveted appointment, "it just means I can help my district."

Her idealistic claims are not likely to stop Washington observers from speculating, given how

far Wasserman Schultz has already come at such a young age. If there's one thing the heated2008 Democratic primary contest has proven, it's that gender and race are no longer barriers

to running for the highest office in the land.

And though Wasserman Schultz is not the sort for introspection, she does admit that her

support for Hillary Clinton has given rise to a stubborn daydream, one in which she's

walking down Pennsylvania Avenue with one of her daughters. "I want to be able to point at

the Oval Office and say, 'A woman works there.' "


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