Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09: NW Chicago and near north suburbs) is a rising force in the House of Representatives. She is a chief deputy whip, sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and describes her top priority in Congress to be "providing universal healthcare coverage for all Americans." She is also a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and is a founding member of the Out of Iraq caucus.

For the past seven years, Jan has hosted a fundraiser called "The Ultimate Women’s Power Lunch" for her campaign. Friday, at this year’s UWPL, the featured Guest of Honor was FDL favorite and former CIA operative Valerie Plame, but also prominent at the event was Michelle Obama. Both spoke to the crowd of over 1800 folks, all rabid to see Jan continue her work in Congress and to see Bush go back to his true calling as a tireless clearer of brush.

For those who haven’t been following things closely, Valerie and her husband Joe Wilson have both been longtime major Hilary Clinton supporters. Just the other day, the Clinton campaign unveiled a new ad with the two of them, promoting Hillary as the candidate best suited to bring an end to the war in Iraq.

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and suggest that Michelle might beg to differ.

Knowing that both were going to be at this UWPL event Friday, I turned to the Chicago media, to hear about the fireworks.

*crickets*

No fireworks, no pie fighting, no poo-flinging, nothing. One Chicago television station headlines their story on the event "Michelle Obama, Ex-Spy Plame Attend Chicago Event."

*yawn*

Well, not nothing, exactly.

Jan is a big Obama supporter, yet she invited Valerie to headline her fundraiser. Valerie is a big Clinton supporter, and yet she came to this event knowing Jan’s choice of presidential candidates is not her choice. Michelle is a big Obama supporter, and yet she came to this event knowing that Valerie was the featured headliner.

While strongly pushing their own presidential candidates, Valerie and Michelle showed that it’s possible for presidential partisans work together to support down-ticket races and the party as a whole.

You read that right. They proved that surrogates for competing campaigns can indeed play nice and work well with each other, even when the other one supports a candidate who obviously sucks.

It’d be kind of nice if some of the other surrogates — or the two presidential candidates themselves — could do the same.