Since 2010 no one has done a better job of entertaining and/or infuriating Florida's political right with her mouth than U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Come to that, the Weston Democrat's party gung-ho-isms have bedeviled her liberal brethren, too -- sometimes including the president of the United States.
Nevertheless, DWS as she is known, has survived a flock of gaffes on national television and within the party -- and even after the abysmal Democratic collapse in 2014, even with members of her own party gunning for her, she somehow manages to keep her seat as chair of the Democratic National Committee.
At least, so far.
It helps that she is a prodigious fundraiser with a giant work ethic and a passion for defending the party line.
At home, DWS has rock star celebrity. She represents a dark-blue district on the Gold Coast -- 48 percent Democrat, 26 percent Republican and 25.6 percent "other." In 2010 she beat Karen Harrington 60.1 percent to 38.1 percent. In 2012, when the GOP threw a ton of money into Harrington's campaign, Wasserman Schultz still cruised to a 63 percent to 35.5 percent victory. In 2014, she knocked off Republican Joe Kaufman by a comfortable 62.7 percent to 37.3 percent.
She hand-picked Sen. Nan Rich to take her place in the Florida Senate, and she hand-picked Allison Tant to chair the Florida Democratic Party. Then, later, when gubernatorial candidate Rich wanted the endorsement of liberal groups like Emily's List, it was Wasserman Schultz who stopped it cold, who put the fix in for former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist.
But all that invincibility doesn't faze Republicans, who still dream of driving Wasserman Schultz out of Washington, out of office, and off their television screens. Most political observers, however, believe DWS' end of days will be self-inflicted rather than the result of anything the Republicans can do to her.
Wasserman Schultz -- cancer survivor, wife and mother of young children -- was first elected to the U.S. House in 2004, after serving four terms in the state House and two in the state Senate.In May 2011, at age 44 and amid great hoopla, she became the youngest Democratic National Committee leader in decades.
It didn't take long for her to begin earning negative headlines.
--CNN had laughedat her in disbelief during an early 2012 interview when she blamed the entire tea party movement for the shooting of her colleague, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, despite the apolitical state of the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner.
-- InSeptember, 2012,she so embarrassed high-ranking party leaders with shoot-from-the-hip misstatements to CNN's Anderson Cooper, downright inaccuracies and even a charge of thuggery, that there were rumors she was a danger to Obama's re-election and could have the DNC chair yanked from under her. It didn't happen. In the presidential campaign's closing days, Obama looked strong in Florida. The DWS survived in style, emerging as an Obama confidante.
--On the campaign trailfor Obama she told CNN's Candy Crowley Obama's strength in Wisconsin would defeat Gov. Scott Walker in the recall election. Later, as Walker's position strengthened, she retreated on camera like the Germans from Stalingrad. "I never said that," she insisted.
--In March, 2013, Wasserman Schultz was literally laughed out of the door when she complained to a House Appropriations Committee that a combination of cuts over the past two years has robbed Washington's impoverished, six-figure-salaried congressional aides of nearly 11 percent of their personal budgets. They couldn't even afford to go to lunch, she said.
--Last September, she said that Gov. Scott Walker had given women the back of his hand. She added, What Republican tea party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is, they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back. It is not going to happen on our watch. She later apologized for those remarks.
Those incidents are only the tip of the iceberg. There have been many more -- in fact, it's been one thing after another. To the point that everything Wasserman Schultz does and says now is thoroughly scrutinized.At the Charlotte convention in 2012, for example, she upset the president himself by having her DNC staff explore and plot how she could remain chairwoman if Obama lost the race. And nearly three years later, her frantic effort to find a DNC sponsor for her convention wardrobe is still late-night comedy fodder.
Though the DNC chair had hinted at making a run for Marco Rubio's U.S. Senate seat in 2016, she now looks to be backing away from that idea. Never fear, say those who know her best, she's nothing if not a survivor. Ambitious as she is, she definitely has a Plan B.
In SSN's first five years -- strictly from a news organization's standpoint -- Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been the gift that keeps on giving.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
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