Kellyanne Conway
For the first time in the history of the United States, the successful presidential campaign was headed by a woman. In business, Donald J. Trump has promoted women to very responsible positions and in the most important step in his life, he chose a woman to be the boss and run his campaign. She was not just a spokesperson who advised Donald Trump, she actually told him where to go and when to go. For the last month of his campaign she was with him at every speech and every stop.
She was born Kellyanne Fitzpatrick on Jan. 20, 1967, in Camden, New Jersey, and she celebrated her 50th birthday on Donald Trump’s inauguration day. Her father owned a small trucking company and her mother worked for a bank. They divorced when she was three and she was raised by her mother and grandmother. She attended Trinity College in Washington, D.C., and graduated Magna Cum Laude. She graduated from George Washington University Law School with honors and received her law degree in 1992. She passed the bar and is a legitimate attorney today. She had a job in the polling business before she graduated from college and opened her own polling firm in 1995, three years after graduating from college. She became a political consultant and worked for Jack Kemp, Fred Thompson, Dan Quale, Newt Gingrich and Mike Pence. There were four young women who became stars to the cable television industry during the same period as guests who would always give an interesting interview. Kellyanne was one and the other three were Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter and Barbara Olsen.
In 2016, she was a political consultant to Ted Cruz and was responsible for a number of attacks on Donald Trump by Ted Cruz. When Ted Cruz withdrew from the presidential race in mid-June, Kellyanne was out of a job. On July 1, Donald Trump announced that he had hired Kellyanne to advise him on how to win the women’s vote in the election. This hiring was likely based on recommendations from Newt Gingrich and Mike Pence. About six weeks later on Aug. 19, Donald Trump announced that Kellyanne Conway was now his third campaign manager. She is not bashful and immediately took over the campaign and made the changes that were necessary. She helped to establish the issues that Donald Trump would champion and saw every speech before he gave it. He began to use teleprompters to get his message out in proper terms. She booked his appearances and he began to have 25,000 to 35,000 at his appearances while Hillary was having 2,000 to 5,000 attend her appearances. The news media ignored the attendance difference and kept saying that Hillary was winning.
Kellyanne is very good at thinking on her feet and can respond to any comment made by the news media without hesitation. During the campaign, there were very few interviews that were given by Donald Trump. When the news media attempted to book him, Kellyanne would agree to give them an interview and they were never able to trap her with a trick question. She answered them quickly and very decisively. If you had to pick winners and losers, you would always say that Kellyanne won.
It was Kellyanne’s knowledge of polling that told her that things were changing and Trump could win in the Rust Belt of states that always voted for Democrat candidates. During the last few days of the campaign, Trump was holding appearances in these states and Hillary was ignoring them because she was sure she would get their votes. All of these states gave their votes to Trump. Trump won 31 states and Hillary won 20 states. Hillary won the two biggest states of New York and California by a big enough margin that she won the popular vote nationwide. The most shocking statistic was that Trump won 3,084 counties nationwide while Hillary only won 57 counties. California was the only state where Hillary won more counties that Trump. In the other 19 states where Hillary won the delegates, Trump won more counties than Hillary but Hillary won the most popular counties. Kellyanne and Donald Trump both have stated that they believed Hillary expected to lose when Hillary’s campaign cancelled their fireworks display two weeks before voting day Nov. 8. One interesting comment about the election was that the Democrats had an early lead but that changed late in the day after the Republicans got off from work and went to the polls.
The liberals constantly accused Donald Trump of being a woman hater. His corporation for years has had women in high positions being paid on the same scale as men in similar positions. The media rarely acknowledged that Kellyanne was actually running the Trump campaign. Kellyanne said that her plan for her life was to become a lawyer and work at that trade for her entire life. She acknowledges that God had a different plan for her life and she has just followed the steps that he has guided her through. Before she graduated from George Washington University Law School with honors, she worked for the polling company that had handled Ronald Reagan’s campaign. She loved the work and continued in polling and became a Republican political adviser, specializing in helping candidates get the women’s vote. She eventually founded her own company that has been very successful for her with commercial clients. She is quick to respond to comments about being a woman in a field that is dominated by men. One potential client asked her how she managed to raise her kids and handle these important jobs. She told him that she hoped he asked the men he was interviewing how they managed to keep up with their golf games and support their mistress and manage a home life and an important job.
Kellyanne was the first woman to manage a presidential campaign and win. She said that after the election, Donald Trump told her to name the position in his cabinet that she wanted and it was hers. She was on the transition team and interviewed every candidate that was a serious candidate for a cabinet position. She said that she did not wish to be a part of the cabinet where she would have specific daily duties and has been appointed as legal counsel to the president. She is a registered attorney in New Jersey.