Katherine Fernandez-Rundle has a boyfriend or, as she corrected me once, a fiance. They had been "engaged" for four years when Rundle told me this, which was within the last two years.
The First Laddie* enjoys his role as "Powerful Man behind the Woman." If I recall correctly he's a big-time civil lawyer and deeply involved in Rundle's political career. He takes himself and his role as First Laddie very seriously.
In Rundle's first campaign against Al Milian, former prosecutor, now judge, Bronwyn Miller, accompanied Rundle and The First Laddie to some campaign event. Rundle pulled one of her Rundles, some embarrassing faux pas. When the three of them loaded back in their vehicle to drive to the next stop The First Laddie went off on Rundle. He began screaming at her for the incident. He screamed at her as Bronwyn Miller--one of Rundle's employees--sat, a captive audience, in horror in the back seat.
And as she did in meetings when Abraham Laeser insulted her in the presence of her colleagues, Katherine Fernandez-Rundle sat impassively in the front seat, not saying a word, just taking all the abuse and humiliation.
*Rundle's fiance's name is David-Something. I only met him once. Shortly after Lorna Salomon and I started dating I accompanied her to an office function, a meet and greet affair derisively called the "puppy party" by the administration for the new lawyers just hired. Lorna was signing people in and giving them name tags and I was spreading charm (When I subsequently got a $1000 "merit" bonus Lorna told me the merit was for this political charm. (I didn't get another one.)). As I was meeting and greeting I heard a man say rudely "I'm not wearing one." His tone made me quickly turn to see who was giving Lorna a hard time and on whom I could un-charm myself. I only saw the man's back as he walked away after signing in, sans name tag. "Who's that," I asked. "Kathy's fiance." "What's his problem?" "Oh the last time he was at a function we gave him the wrong name tag." "Oh for God's sake, where is he." Lorna nodded her head in the direction. He was standing off by himself in a coiled war-like stance, shifting his weight from foot to foot almost like a boxer. His presentation was so out of proportion to the offense I had imagined that I thought of this handsome middle-aged man walking around with a name tag identifying him as "Howard Pohl" and laughed out loud. "So that's the First Laddie," I said to Lorna Salomon. "David, shh."
-David Ranck
