DNC chairwoman a work in progress By: Doug Heye July 7, 2011 09:51 PM EDT

When President Barack Obama selected Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to lead the Democratic National Committee, she was hailed as the best pick he could make. Since her election to Congress, Wasserman Schultz has quickly earned a reputation as a partisan warrior and strong cable news presence who could effectively put Republicans on their heels. Being both a woman and from the battleground state of Florida didn’t hurt either. But, like “The Hangover Part II,” Wasserman Schultz hasn’t quite lived up to her billing. From the start, there has been gaffe after gaffe, which either demonstrates a blind partisanship that shuns facts or a wide disconnect from the average voter. Wasserman Schultz has insisted, “We continue to be on the right track” and that Obama “helped the economy do a 180” — despite polling and economic data screaming otherwise. On Medicare, her rhetoric has been extreme. Claiming Republicans would “throw you to the wolves” earned the congresswoman a trifecta of media rebukes: The Washington Post, calling the claim “bogus,” gave her three “Pinocchios.” FactCheck.Org said, “DNC Chair Throws Truth to ‘Wolves,’” while PolitiFact just said, “We rate her statement false.” Meanwhile, an expert cited by the DNC to support the chairwoman’s claims labeled her comments “high-octane idiocy.” Wasserman Schultz said last month that Democrats “added 12 years of solvency to Medicare,” later dialing it back to eight years. She had no evidence of support and was corrected, on-air, by CBS’s Harry Smith. She has given Republicans material to use through the 2012 election cycle. Discussing the economy, Wasserman Schultz told Mike Allen — and those assembled and tweeting — at a recent POLITICO Playbook breakfast, “We are clearly responsible. I am going to take ownership right now. … Yeah we own — we own the economy.” This led National Review’s Jim Geraghty to write that Wasserman Schultz “almost makes the [Republican National Committee’s] job too easy.” In fact, the RNC has been a prodigious chronicler of the congresswoman’s comments, gleefully noting each correction and latest over-the-top comment. After she claimed, “If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars,” the RNC pointed out that Wasserman Schultz herself drives a Japanese Infiniti. Even before the “ownership” comment, American Crossroads launched a video lampooning the DNC chairwoman as the “Saturday Night Live” character Debbie Downer — the kind of Web ad every Republican wishes they had made. The criticism has not remained inside the Beltway; it’s traveled with her back home to Florida. Calling her a “chump,” the Orlando Sentinel said Wasserman Schultz is “embarrassing her party and her constituents. Stop already.” Of course, it’s not too late for her to turn things around. Just as some senior Democrats are now saying that she will not be able to do both the job she was elected to and the job she was appointed to, others insist that the rocky start is the best thing that could have happened to her. They say it is an immediate first-person lesson that the stakes are higher here — unlike a one-minute speech on the House floor, the press is paying close attention to her every word.http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=D93EB0B6-3ED7-405B-AE62-CA0FAF989CCA http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=D93EB0B6-3ED7-405B-AE62-CA0FAF989CCA While RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was selected largely to help his party climb out of debt — and new Federal Election Commission numbers show that, without an Obama campaign assist, he is far outraising Wasserman Schultz — she, on the other hand, was selected largely to take her fight to the airwaves. Indeed, just two months ago, I praised her as “skilled at the ‘hand-to-hand combat’ of cable news debates, often causing Republicans to wish some other Democrat had been booked in her place.” “It’s easy to throw bombs and to be incendiary,” Wasserman Schultz told “Face the Nation.” No doubt. But while throwing those bombs and maintaining her aggressiveness, Wasserman Schultz looks to have lost some of her effectiveness. Doug Heye most recently served as communications director for the Republican National Committee. He has served as a press secretary and communications director in the Senate, the House, the executive branch and on political campaigns.

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