Gabriel's Life

BY GLENN THRUSH | glenn.thrush@newsday.com
December 18, 2007

JOHNSTON, Iowa - Shannon Mallozzi was standing in a drafty barn basement here yesterday, coughing uncontrollably but still buzzing from her first stump speech on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mallozzi, a lifelong Republican from East Northport, never thought she’d be working for Clinton, or any Democrat, a few years ago. That was before she approached Clinton after a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Long Island in 2004 to talk about her then-3-year-old daughter Isabella, who suffers from an incurable but treatable brain malady called hydrocephalus.

“I’m not going to say I disliked Hillary, but I wasn’t an advocate,” said Mallozzi, 36, who was forced to cut her two-day visit to Iowa short due to a terrible cold. “The perception was that she was, you know, kind of remote. Let’s put it this way: a parent would make a deal with the devil to help their child, but I was pleasantly surprised. There was no reason for her to do as much as she did.”

That day, Clinton ushered Mallozzi into a staff car and listened quietly to Isabella’s story for a half-hour. At the end, Clinton pledged her personal support and said her office would help lobby to fund federal research into the disease.

“I’m not just yes-ing you,” Clinton told her. “I’m really going to help.”

About 700,000 Americans suffer from hydrocephalus, which causes a damaging build-up of fluid in the brain that can lead to cognitive damage, paralysis and blindness. During the next few years, Clinton and her aides popped in and out of Mallozzi’s life as they worked on securing funding to increase research on curing the disease. The effort hasn’t succeeded yet but Mallozzi remains optimistic.

A year and a half later, Isabella was undergoing surgery at Stony Brook University Hospital to insert a shunt into her brain, when a nurse walked into the waiting room with surprising news.

“She said, ‘We got a phone call from Senator Clinton saying that she would consider it a personal favor if we took good care of your daughter,’” Mallozzi said. “I don’t even know how she knew Isabella was there.”

The now 6-year-old Isabella, whose curly brown hair and easy smile make her a dead ringer for her mother, is doing well and lives a mostly normal life, her mother said.

Mallozzi’s debut on the stump was part of a five-day Hawkeye State blitz to showcase Clinton’s softer side, amid polling that shows her with the highest unfavorable and lowest likability ratings in the Democratic field.

To make their point, the campaign created a new Web site, thehillaryiknow.com, featuring Mallozzi’s story and the tales from other satisfied constituents and longtime Clinton friends. The message is to emphasize a seldom-seen motherly side of a candidate who takes a deep interest in the health and well-being of her staff’s children and parents, aides say.

Clinton, who was wary of discussing details of her personal life during the first 11 months of the campaign, seemed a tad squeamish about the up-close-and-personal approach during a 20-minute stop at her Des Moines headquarters yesterday.

“It’s a little hard to be standing there listening to people talk about yourself because that’s not who I am,” she said.

But that didn’t stop Clinton from doing it. The former first lady used Isabella’s story to illustrate her opposition to rival Barack Obama’s health care plan, which she claims would leave 15 million people without coverage. Obama has repeatedly said his plan is comprehensive.

“Who do we leave out?” Clinton asked the 150 Iowans huddled in the restored 19th century Simpson Barn in suburban Des Moines yesterday. “Shannon’s daughter Isabella? She has a deteriorating condition - should we leave her out?”