He had the blueprint for Fla. -- St. Augustine's Schale eyes future after helping Obama in Sunshine State win

He had the blueprint for Fla. -- St. Augustine's Schale eyes future after helping Obama in Sunshine State win

By CHAD SMITH
chad.smith@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 01/26/09


June 24: It's Steven Schale's second day on the job as the director of Barack Obama's Florida campaign, and there is hardly a campaign to speak of.

In fact, the whole thing, minus the fundraisers, is assembled around the kitchen table of Schale's Tallahassee home: just himself and two other staffers. That's it.

The campaign is already behind the eight ball because it had written off the state before the primary -- as did the other Democratic campaigns -- because the state bumped up the date of its election.

Fast forward to Nov. 3: Schale, a 34-year-old who grew up in St. Augustine, is looking confident after Obama's campaign stop in Jacksonville. The polls will open in less than 24 hours, and other than a last-minute get-out-the-vote push, his job is done. It's left to the voters.

Nov. 4: The electorate speaks and gives Florida's 27 electoral votes to Obama, in large part because the unassuming Schale had taken the campaign out of the friendly confines of South Florida and into the more rural, more red, areas of the state, picking up handfuls more votes than recent Democrats. For just the second time since 1976, a Democratic presidential candidate won in the Sunshine State.

Jan. 23: Schale has just gotten back from Washington, and in a phone interview he says he finally got a bit of closure from the election, getting to celebrate with his staff at the inauguration.

Now he's back at his old job in Tallahassee -- political director for the state House of Representatives Democratic Caucus -- waiting to see who else he can get elected.



After the election, the Obama staff asked him whether he was interested in coming to work in Washington.

It was more or less a formality, he said, something the campaign asks of just about all the state directors. It didn't mean he was guaranteed a spot.

Still, he declined the offer. He's content in his home state, with his wife and his two dogs.

"We're likely to stick around down here," he said, "and see if we can keep sending good folks to Washington."

Next up is probably Dan Gelber, a Democratic state senator from Miami who will likely announce this week he will vie for the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacant next year after Mel Martinez's term is up. Martinez, a Republican from Orlando, has said he will not seek reelection.

"If Dan runs I will be involved with the campaign at really almost any level he would like," Schale said.

And from the praise Gelber gave Schale on his blog -- "Steve is a principled warrior, a true believer in every sense, and a guy who is in politics not for the sheer game of it..." -- it might not be very long before the party's rising star is back behind the curtain of a big-time campaign.

Even though Obama's inauguration has come and gone, Schale is still unwinding from his wild year. That will continue into next month, when he'll be in the stands at the Daytona 500, watching stock cars zoom around the speedway at nearly 200 mph.

"NASCAR for me is a big part of my post-election therapy," he said.

And since there hasn't been a Sprint Cup race since a few weeks after the election, the 500 will provide some welcome R and R, even if he might need earplugs.

But, after the race, he will no doubt be in one of his own. Despite the relative success Democrats have had in Florida recently, Schale said now is hardly the time to take the foot off the gas.

"I never believed, even during the days when Republicans were winning elections in Florida, that Florida's anything other than a swing state," he said. "I don't believe now, that President Obama won Florida, that Florida's anything other than a swing state."

"It's a state that I don't think will ever be anything but competitive," he said.

And that's why he's sticking around.

Meet Steven Schale

Born: Sept. 29, 1974, in Kankakee, Ill.

Local: Moved to St. Augustine at the age of 9; attended R.B. Hunt Elementary, Ketterlinus Junior High and Episcopal High of Jacksonville; parents live in St. Augustine.

Education: Candidate for master's degree in communications, Florida State University; bachelor's degree, The University of the South.

Professional: Florida state director for Barack Obama's presidential campaign; currently the political director for the Florida House of Representatives Democratic Caucus.

Personal: Lives in Tallahassee with his wife, Nikole Souder-Schale, and two dogs, Prince and Chloe.


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