Re-posted by Nicholas Stix
I thank the reader who sent this, remarking,
Contrast Trump’s press spokeswoman with Columba Bush or Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Trump is getting my vote!
If I weren’t such a high-minded fellow, I’d respond as follows:
If she ain't stunning, she'll have to do, until the real thing comes along. Just another morsel of political entertainment. I'm sure she's very sharp, given her old man, and a few years of experience in the BS biz.
But I’m too high-minded for that, and so I won’t say any such thing. Instead, I’ll have a purely cerebral appreciation of this person. If we met, I'd tell her, "What a beautiful, er, mind you have, my dear."
Greenwich natives help Trump, Bush and Obama hone their message
By Neil Vigdor
August 4, 2015
NewsTimes
The presidential media gaggle has a common denominator — Greenwich.
The Connecticut town synonymous with hedge funds and polo is campaign public-relations central.
It boasts Donald Trump’s apprentice with a lowercase “a” and Jeb Bush’s sound-bite guru as home-grown surrogates, as well as the White House director of communications for President Barack Obama.
Population: 62,000.
Their names are Hope Hicks, Allie Brandenburger and Jen Psaki.
“I think Greenwich is incredibly telegenic,” said Ned Lamont, a former candidate for governor and U.S. Senate who is familiar with all three.
The media cauldron is perhaps most treacherous for Hicks, 26, who the highly unpredictable Republican party crasher Trump hand-picked to be his spokeswoman. The former model has been dubbed as Trump’s handler, if that’s possible.
“Part of having these jobs is dealing with the adversity the same as dealing with the success,” said Hicks’ father, Paul Hicks III, who is well versed in the art of spin and crisis management.
The elder Hicks is executive vice president of communications and government affairs for the National Football League.
“I think she’s a product of a generation that has a different approach to media consumption,” said Hicks, a former Greenwich selectman. “I think she’s savvy about keeping her feet on the ground and weeding out what’s sort of the stuff of the moment and what’s serious and real.”
Trump poached the younger Hicks, a Greenwich High School graduate and lacrosse team co-captain, from daughter Ivanka Trump’s PR operation about six months ago. Hicks has been with the Trump organization for about a year, ascending to the position of communications director. The Southern Methodist University graduate broke into PR at the New York City firm, Zeno Group.
Hicks and Brandenburger declined to comment, not wanting to take away attention from Trump and Bush in the days before the first GOP presidential debate.
Brandenburger, 28, signed onto Bush’s campaign from the Retail Industry Leaders Association, where she was communications director for 21/2 years. During the 2012 presidential race, the Greenwich Academy graduate was a regional press secretary for Mitt Romney’s campaign, the same title she held at the Republican National Committee. In 2010, the University of Southern California graduate was deputy press secretary for Meg Whitman’s gubernatorial campaign in Calilfornia.
In February, Obama tappped Psaki, 36, his 2008 campaign spokeswoman, as White House communications director. Psaki returned to the White House from the spokeswoman gig at the State Department.
“After some time in politics and government, you develop a very tough skin,” Psaki, who recently gave birth to a daughter, told Hearst Connecticut Media this spring. “You never want the story to be about you. It's about the person you work for.”
Hicks and Brandenburger have already been tested, with Trump’s flack grilled by the media about the tycoon’s disproportionate amount of charitable donations and broad association of Mexican immigrants with drug trafficking and rape. Brandenburger has answered for Bush on Florida’s “stand your ground” law and remarks Bush made about Americans needing to work longer hours, which the former Florida governor said were misconstrued. neil.vigdor@scni.com; 203-625-4436; http://twitter.com/gettinviggy
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