During last night’s SOTU address President Obama framed much of the domestic policy part of the speech around the story of Rebekah and Ben Erler. He presented them as a young couple from Minneapolis who face many of the everyday struggles of ordinary Americans.

Seven years ago, Rebekah and Ben Erler of Minneapolis were newlyweds.

She waited tables. He worked construction. Their first child, Jack, was on the way. They were young and in love in America, and it doesn’t get much better than that.

“If only we had known,” Rebekah wrote to me last spring, “what was about to happen to the housing and construction market.”

As the crisis worsened, Ben’s business dried up, so he took what jobs he could find, even if they kept him on the road for long stretches of time.

Rebekah took out student loans and enrolled in community college and retrained for a new career.

They sacrificed for each other, and slowly, it paid off. They bought their first home. They had a second son, Henry. Rebekah got a better job, and then a raise. Ben’s back in construction and home for dinner every night.

“It is amazing,” Rebekah wrote, “what you can bounce back from when you have to. We are a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, hard times.”

“We are a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, hard times.”

America, Rebekah and Ben’s story is our story. They represent the millions who’ve worked hard and scrimped and sacrificed and retooled.

However, this glowing profile (and the one on the White House website) left out a big part of Rebekah Erler’s history. Specifically, the part where she was a Democrat campaign worker for Washington state Senator Patty Murray.