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Student of the game
Ari Fleischer
talks about
White House
communications,
then and now
By Klint Lowry
Throughout Ari Fleischer’s career in political
communications, and particularly during his tenure as
White House press secretary for President George W.
Bush, it was noted how Fleischer liked to use sports
metaphors when talking politics.
Nearly 15 years after leaving that post, his career path
can be compared to that of a star athlete.
Fleischer first came to Washington in the mid-1980s, a
promising prospect who quickly established himself in GOP
circles as a blue-chip talent at communications.
In the years that followed, he built up an impressive —
and staunchly Republican — stat sheet, working as press
secretary for two New York congressmen and as field director
of the Republican National Congressional Committee.
In 1988, he began a five-year stint as press secretary
for Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, during which time
he also served as deputy communications director for
then-President George H.W. Bush’s reelection campaign
in 1992. Later, he spent five years as spokesman for the
House Ways and Means Committee.
After more than a decade in the big leagues, Fleischer’s
championship season came in 2001. He’d started as
communications director for Elizabeth Dole’s 2000
presidential campaign, but when she dropped out of the
race early, Fleischer was tapped to assist with George W.
Bush’s campaign.
When Bush emerged victorious, he named Fleischer to
his starting lineup as his White House press secretary, a
job he held from January 2001 until mid-2003.
These days, he’s like the hall-of-famer who is frequently
called upon to offer color commentary. This past summer,
he signed on to be a contributor at Fox News, where he
provides sideline analysis on current events in the political
arena.
On March 26, Fleischer was the keynote speaker at the
Truckload Carriers Association’s 80th Annual Convention,
where he brought some of those insights, reminisced on
his career and offered his take on the ups and downs of
Donald Trump’s presidency thus far.
After his speech, he sat down to talk about these things
in more detail.
Fleischer’s polish as a communicator showed as he
opened his speech with a “confession.” For a man who’s
travelled in the circles he has, there was no telling how big
a bombshell this could be. Without hesitation, he spilled it.
“I was actually raised as a liberal Democrat,” he said,
adding his parents were “horrified” when he went to work
for Bush.
In fact, he said, when he left the White House in 2003
and his hometown newspaper asked his mother about his
work there, “she told them that this was a phase I was
going through.”
Fleischer told the crowd his political transformation
occurred while he was attending Middlebury College in
Vermont. Jimmy Carter’s presidency turned him from a
liberal to a conservative, he said, then Ronald Reagan
inspired him to switch parties.
Later, he further explained his metamorphosis.
“I’m 57, I grew up in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate
era,” he said. “People felt really lousy about America. For
me, personally, it was that Ronald Reagan vision of loving
this country, being optimistic and patriotic, which when I
was growing up, it didn’t exist. And that just struck a real
cultural chord with me.”
Family ties had something to do with why Reagan’s
words resonated. Fleischer’s mother immigrated from
Hungary in 1939, where he still has relatives.
“I hated communism, I hated totalitarianism,” he said.
“I went back to visit my family in the ’70s when they were
still there under communism. And Reagan talked about
freedom and the end of communism and taking on the
Soviet Union.
“That’s the first thing that started making me think
these Republicans aren’t as terrible as I was raised to
believe. There are some things they believe in that sound
like me.”
That, he explained, is the key to being the presidential
press secretary. “The heart of the job is to believe,” he
34 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2018