Free . . . And His Lovely Wife by Connie Schultz Page A

the window to see how the landscape had changed. I could not be the columnist I wanted to be as long as Sherrod was running for the Senate. Slowly, but ever so surely, I was losing my voice. I could not give readers the column of substance they deserved, and I wasn’t the journalist I wanted to be.
    Before I went to see Clifton, I stopped by the desk of my editor, Stuart Warner. He had warned me that this day would come, but he had also urged me to think about what Sherrod’s race could mean for the state and the country. Stuart and I had had many long talks about the importance of this race, and how Sherrod would need me with him on the road.
    â€œYou’re going to be his secret weapon,” Stuart had said more than once. “You’ll do more good on the road than you can ever accomplish here.” He never said it without scowling, though, because he knew how much I loved my job, and working with him. He was my editor, my mentor, and my friend.
    â€œYou’ll never stop being a journalist,” he had written in an e-mail to my home the previous week. “It’s in your blood.”
    He looked at me now and didn’t even try to smile. He knew what was coming. “I know this is hard for you, but it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “We’re going to be covering the race more, and Sherrod is going to need you.”
    That night, Sherrod greeted the news with shock—and anger. Not at me, but at my profession. He was forever insisting that no one could possibly question my ethics or credibility, and I knew he meant that, but I also knew he was struggling with considerable guilt over the impact his decision to run was having on my life.
    â€œThere’s no way you should have to stop writing about what matters to you,” he said. “This is bullshit.”
    â€œIt’s not,” I said, “and you know it’s not. I have to avoid even the appearance of conflict, and that list of topics is growing too long.”
    He looked stricken, and I felt defeated. We had both known it would come to this, but his love for me and his faith in my integrity had never let him consider it a real possibility. His refusal to accept this inevitability had led to more than one argument, always unresolved.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to think this could ever happen to you.”
    The next day, on February 10, I met with Clifton to tell him I would write for the following week and then take a leave of absence for the rest of the campaign. To my surprise, he said he hadn’t expected me to leave so soon. Like my supervisors, he grimaced when I told him what some of the bloggers were saying, and he nodded when I told him I wasn’t having any fun anymore writing my column.
    â€œYou’ll come back, right?” he said, after agreeing that I would write an exit column. “You have to say in that column that you’ll be back in November.”
    Sherrod had left for Washington that morning. After speaking to Clifton, I went home that afternoon and didn’t leave the house for the next two days. I needed to sit with my decision and think about what it would mean.
    Then, the following Monday night, the campaign received stunning news. John Ryan and press secretary Joanna Kuebler were wrapping up a meeting at our home when an Elyria
Chronicle Telegram
reporter called to ask Sherrod one question: “Is it true that Paul Hackett has dropped out of the race?”
    Sherrod had heard no such thing, and told him so.
    Moments later, Joanna’s cell phone rang. A campaign staffer read a breaking news story on
The New York Times
’s website: Two days before the primary filing deadline, Hackett was out. He was angry, too, claiming that Senators Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid had pressured him to get out of the race. He was done with politics, he told
New York Times
reporter Ian Urbina.
    The Plain Dealer
soon reported that