The Speaker's Office: What Can One Say?

So, last Friday I got to visit with Wendall Primus, one of the premiere health economist in the universe and top aide to Speaker Pelosi. It was very cool. I entered the Congress building on the House side, walked up to the Speaker's office, and we told by the scheduler to take to elevator to the 4th floor, where Wendall would meet me. Waited for about 10 minutes, on a couch staring at the picture of Nancy Pelosi gaveling in the Congress as Speaker in 2007. (Note that the same picture was taken from a right -wing blog which condemn's her- people do feel strongly about the Speaker). Wendall is a gem- soft-spoken, smart as hell, a mover and shaker in the area of welfare economics. We had a great conversation. He wanted to know my story, my reasons for being here, my thoughts on a few issues (autism, EPSDT). He was almost professorial in his outlook, talking about the 6 Ps of public policy (process, policy, politics, people, public and press). He told me that I would have to begin with the "easy" stuff- meeting with the various interest groups who will want to have a piece of the conference with which he will be intimately involved in the near future. On the way out, I invited him to take in the Washington Chorus concert next month- he politely took my card. Ran into Deb Trautman on the way out, who had just had her "going away" party. I left feeling like he had a good sense of who I was, and that he hopes to make his decision by next Friday. I left with a sense that, to be a fly on the wall of the Speaker's office would be of tremendous value, but not with the same sense of joy that I felt when leaving the Senate Finance Committee. On the one hand, I am excited by the prospect of the visit. On the other, I wonder if I am invited to both places, which would I really like to take on. Probably I will be invited to neither, and will just feel down about the whole thing.