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Wade Horn doesn't view himself or his ideas as particularly revolutionary. He'd say he's merely the promoter of an obvious prescription: Healthy marriages can cure all sorts of societal ills, and they should be promoted by government and advertised by happy couples.

When Congress last summer began updating 1996's welfare reforms, Horn took center stage as the Bush Administration's point man on marriage and family policy. The proposal: Spend up to $300 million a year encouraging couples to get—and stay—married, through tax incentives, access to counseling, and mass-media campaigns. The end result, he hopes, will be a lower divorce rate, fewer out-of-wedlock births, and, ultimately, fewer people living in poverty.

The idea that strong marriages build a strong society isn't exactly a revelation. But remember: This is Washington. Sometimes logic doesn't work here. The down-to-earth, 47-year-old Horn likes to joke that the length of a government official's title is inversely proportional to how much power he has. Then he rattles off his: Assistant Secretary for Children and Families in the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Time magazine called him simply, "Bush's marriage guy." Under Horn's Theory of Titles, that's a much better reflection of the influence he wields. He's a child psychologist, worked on family policy in the first Bush Administration, and in 1994 helped found the National Fatherhood Initiative. In that role, Horn latched onto the lynchpin behind his current push: Strong, stable marriages improve children's well-being.

His own 26-year marriage to consultant Claudia Blair Horn (they met as undergrads at American University) provides a constant backdrop. He says the most important thing they've learned together over those years is that marriage is a lifetime commitment, with a lifelong responsibility to take care of each other. So it follows that he approaches his administration role with "a commitment to ideals and a focus on the needs of others."

There's also a measure of emotional gratitude to his approach, considering how close Horn's wife came to being a widow and his daughters came to growing up without a dad. In 1989, at age 34, Horn battled and defeated testicular cancer. His daughters, Christen and Caroline, were 7 and 4. Today, Wade and Claudia live in Gaithersburg, Maryland, with their daughters, now 20 and 17. The life-threatening experience, combined with a loving wife and family, helped Horn hold his career with a light touch—then and now.

"My marriage keeps me grounded in what's really important in life: my wife and kids," he says. "The rest is what I do, not who I am."

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