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Ed Gillespie

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Edward W. Gillespie (born August 1, 1961) is an American Republican political figure.

A successful lobbyist, Gillespie along with Jack Quinn (former Chief of Staff to Vice President Al Gore) founded Quinn Gillespie & Associates, a bipartisan lobbying firm that provides strategic advice, public relations services, and government representation to corporations, trade associations, and issue-based coalitions.

Gillespie was selected by President George W. Bush to be Chairman of the Republican National Committee, where he served from July 2003 to January 2005. He is currently (2007) serving as Counselor to the President.

Biography

Gillespie was born to an Irish American family in Browns Mills, New Jersey and is a graduate of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. While at CUA he began his career on Capitol Hill as a Senate parking lot attendant.

He began his political career as a nighttime telephone solicitor in the basement of the Republican National Committee headquarters in 1985. He later worked for a decade as a top aide to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), and was a principal drafter of the GOP's 1994 "Contract With America." In 1996, he became Director of Communications and Congressional Affairs for the Republican National Committee under then Chairman Haley Barbour.

In March 1998, Gillespie was executive director of coalition supporting computer data encryption called Americans for Computer Privacy. Gillespie's message was that "Encryption is, far from being a geek issue, essential to citizens' individual liberty. The mission that goes with the message is a tough one: to halt a Clinton administration drive to set up a system requiring that software equipped with data-scrambling capabilities also include a way for law enforcement or national security agencies to quickly access the encrypted information" ([1]).

In 1999, Gillespie worked as the Press Secretary for the Presidential campaign of then House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich. Kasich withdrew from the race that summer.

In 2000, Gillespie served as senior communications advisor for the presidential campaign of George W. Bush, organizing the party convention program in Philadelphia for Bush's nomination and Bush's inauguration ceremony. He also played an aggressive role as spokesman for the Bush campaign during the vote recount in Florida.

In 2001, Gillespie briefly worked as acting director of public affairs for the U.S. Commerce Department, helping Secretary Donald Evans organize the agency and hire staff — including Quinn Gillespie lobbyist Jim Dyke. He then returned to working for Quinn Gillespie.

In 2002, Gillespie was a strategist for Elizabeth Dole's 2002 Senate campaign in North Carolina, the most expensive Senate race in the country that year.

Gillespie was President and CEO of Policy Impact Communications before co-founding Quinn, Gillespie & Associates.

Public Citizen has published a 25-page report calling Gillespie "an [2]) embedded lobbyist" and asserting that his appointment as RNC chairman "has opened a conduit for corporate America to strengthen its already formidable influence in the White House and Congress."

Gillespie is married to the former Cathy Hay, executive director of U.S. Rep. Joe Barton's political action committee, the Texas Freedom Fund.

He was recently publicly visible after the 2006 Senate elections as a spokesman for defeated Virginia Senator George Allen. He had been tapped by Allen as a political adviser for a possible presidential run in 2008 before that loss. Gillespie was chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia from December 2006 to June 2007. His book "Winning Right" was released in the September of 2006. He and his wife have three children: John Patrick Gillespie (born 1990), Catherine Carroll "Carrie" Gillespie, (born 1993), and Mollie Brigid Gillespie (born 1996).



White House Counselor taking on some of Karl Rove's job

In late June of 2007, President Bush brought Gillespie into the White House on a full-time basis, to replace the departing Dan Bartlett with the mandate to help raise Bush's flagging popularity ratings. When Karl Rove also departed in August, the Washington Post described Gillespie as stepping up to do part of Rove's job in the White House. Michael A. Fletcher. "As Rove Departs, President Again Turns to Gillespie." Washington Post. August 16, 2007

A later Post article describes Gillespie's role orchestrating a rapid-response PR unit dedicated to "selling the surge to American voters and the media. Peter Baker et. al. "Among Top Officials, 'Surge' Has Sparked Dissent, Infighting." Washington Post. September 9, 2007. According to this article:

From the start of the Bush plan, the White House communications office had been blitzing an e-mail list of as many as 5,000 journalists, lawmakers, lobbyists, conservative bloggers, military groups and others with talking points or rebuttals of criticism...Gillespie arranged several presidential speeches to make strategic arguments, such as comparing Iraq to Vietnam or warning of Iranian interference. When critics assailed Bush for overstating ties between al-Qaeda and the group called al-Qaeda in Iraq, Gillespie organized a Bush speech to make his case. "The whole idea is to take these things on before they become conventional wisdom," said White House communications director Kevin Sullivan. "We have a very short window."

The work of the White House communication office is paid for by tax dollars, not either political party.

Quotes

While working as a Republican observer in Miami-Dade for the 2000 Presidential Election ballot recount, Ed Gillespie, commenting on how the "repeated machine counts degrade the ballots ..., described the scene when county officials ran the ballots through the counting machine for a third time: 'Chad was flying around the room like confetti in New York on New Year's Eve', he said."

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