Kellyanne Conway is a woman who achieved one heck of a first, though I am no fan of how she did it and the result of her success :
Conway was hired by Trump in July, having worked for his rival Ted Cruz, and eventually became his campaign manager ? the first woman in that role to guide a US presidential candidate to victory. She continued to be a regular surrogate for Trump during the transition, continuing the high-wire act with charm and a rare talent for reframing questions.
...
New York Times columnist Frank Bruni described a typical Conway TV interview as a thing of ?sheer, jaw-dropping wonder ? a circus of euphemisms, a festival of distractions and a testament to the stamina of a willed smile?.
?She looks cheery when attacking, even cheerier when attacked and absolutely radiant when descending into a bog of half-truths and fictions. It?s always sunny on Conway?s side of the street.?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...te-house-gaffes-three-strikes-but-not-yet-out
I don't think she is particularly intelligent, but she certainly has a strong work ethic and drive to succeed :
?I didn?t think she was a deep thinker,? one of her high-school teachers told Cosmopolitan. ?But I do remember that she would argue her point relentlessly. You would pray to God that the bell would ring.?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/kellyannes-alternative-universe/517821/
The latter article covers her education, family background, and the groundwork that led to her history-making turn. I have absolutely no liking or respect for her profession (political PR spinning). I respect the work ethic of the individual, but I do not consider the field itself to be beneficial to society (aside from generating jobs and material to keep generating controversy and discussion, I guess, which is also true of drug dealers from that perspective..). I have enormous respect for those people trained in statistics and analytics who choose to work in the field of political polling. It is thankless, daunting, and important work. They are undercut, at every turn, by the likes of Conway who not only twist the existing polling to suit their spin (as expected), but go out and do their own polling - with flawed methodology - to supplement their material.
She is not a stupid woman. She did not walk blindly aboard the Trump train. She has worked for decades to bring about this kind of populist overhaul of US politics. Rightly or wrongly, she's succeeded.
I disagree - vehemently - with the her politics and her methods. I do not wish her any particular ill-will, although I'm long past the point of watching any interview she is a part of, or reading articles that site her as a reliable and knowledgable source to the exclusion of one who can - and will - answer the actual question asked. She has demonstrated time and again that she cannot - or will not - engage in actual conversation and discussion in those situations. So I expect reputable news sources to continue to cease calling on her for comment. I don't care what her job description is, if she can't contribute meaningfully then I don't want to hear from her. I can't think of an equivalent person on the extreme-left who I have written-off, but I think that's more due to the uniqueness of her position than it is political bias. I despise being given the run-around : it's not a sign of intelligence, it's one of trickery and deception. I'm no fan of "talking points" but she has made that concept a kind of artform. I knowledge it now exists, but I have no appreciation for it.
But if it wasn't her, if it wasn't Trump, this would still have come to a head in the US somehow, someday. Not to take away from her achievement (hollow as it is, in my personal opinion), but she identified an already-present trend. She spun her stories artfully, and with a grasp of how to reach "the little people" whilst dancing past the serious questions - from all sides - with a skill that surpasses that of any previous US political spinner. But she didn't create the audience herself.
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I loved Kate Mckinnon in the new Ghostbusters movie, and a random (hysterically funny) short video I saw her in. I don't get to see much of the SNL stuff since the clips linked in articles are rarely viewable in my country. But the photos I've seen of her as Jeff Sessions and Kellyanne Conway are so well done. She is a phenomenal talent!
