A conversation with the Fall 2022 GU Politics Fellows
The Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service welcomes its Fall 2022 GU Politics Fellows, its 15th class since the founding of the Institute. This year’s fellows include include Pulitzer-winning Washington Post Pentagon Correspondent Karoun Demirjian, former Governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe (LAW ’84), former Director of Public Policy at Facebook Katie Harbath, audience analytics expert Alex Lundry (GRD ’04), former Communications Director of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Xochitl Hinojosa, and Head of External Affairs of Robinhood Markets Mary Elizabeth Taylor.
The Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service’s Fall 2022 Fellows sat down with On the Record Staff Writer Zach Fotiadis to discuss topics such as their motivation to stay in politics, the upcoming midterm elections, and the current climate of political polarization. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity purposes. Sign up for their discussion sections here to learn more about their experiences in public service.
Let's jump right into it. Why don’t we begin with some classic introductions, why don’t each of you briefly discuss your careers in politics, what drew you in, and what keeps you there in the present climate?
Katie Harbath: Yeah, I can start. I moved to Washington, DC in 2003 from Wisconsin, where I worked on Republican campaigns. It was digital work for campaigns through the 2010 cycle. Then I joined Facebook on their public policy team, in February of 2011, where I built the teams that work with governments and politicians on how to use the platform. I also helped coordinate work on elections around the globe in mid 2013. I focused on everything—all the issues of today around tech and democracy, content moderation, political and issue ads and disinformation.
Terry McAuliffe: I've been involved in politics going back to 1979, when I was President Carter's finance director at the age of 22. I have been in and out of politics serving as a national chair of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns. I was the 72nd Governor of Virginia, and since then have been out of politics and very active in business. I started about 25 different businesses, specializing in real estate.
Alex Lundry: My first career was actually as a high school teacher where I taught government. And I did that for a few years and said, well, I think I should probably go try this in real life. So I got a degree from Georgetown Public Policy Institute, which is now the McCourt School. I found that I really had a passion for the intersection of data and quantitative research and politics. I turned that into a career as a pollster, but in this emerging field called data science. I've worked as a data scientist for political campaigns from House races up to the presidency. I've worked for multiple presidential candidates, but also, along the way, national issue organizations, advocacy organizations, Fortune 500 companies, etc.
Mary Elizabeth Taylor: I started my career in politics when I was 16 as a U.S. Senate page. I fell in love with watching senators being themselves. I worked on the floor of the Senate and then, after I completed my undergrad at Bryn Mawr, I started working full time in a Republican cloakroom for Mitch McConnell. I worked there for the next six years, and then in January 2017 I went into the White House. I led nominations for about 2 years from the Office of Legislative Affairs, and then when Secretary Pompeo got confirmed he asked me to join his team and lead the Legislative Affairs Bureau at the State Department. I was confirmed by the Senate in October of 2018 when I was 29 and spent the next two years there at the department.
Xochitl Hinojosa: I am originally from Brownsville, TX. I'm a political consultant, and I was most recently the communications director and senior advisor at the DNC during President Obama's win when we flipped the House and the Senate. I started off my career in politics in Texas, but it's really hard to be a Democrat in Texas. After losing a few campaigns, and working in state government there for a little bit, I decided to go into national politics. I worked for Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign in Iowa, worked in the Obama administration as a spokesperson for the Justice Department, the spokesperson for the Labor Department, and then worked in Nevada as a Senate communications director. Then I worked on Hillary Clinton's 2016 race as well. It's a lot of Democratic politics throughout my career.
Karoun A. Demirjian: I work for the Washington Post. I've been at The Post for a little over 8 years. I am currently a Pentagon correspondent there, but I spent six years before that reporting on Capitol Hill. I got my start with The Post on their foreign desk as a correspondent in Moscow, Russia. I have pinged back and forth between doing jobs outside of DC, in the Middle East, in Russia, and in Chicago. So that has been a mix of politics and policy. I am not one of those people who has been doing this since the womb. Coming from Lexington, MA, I figured out that this is what I wanted to try to do at the very end of college, after being a musician on the side for a long time. I've worn a bunch of different hats, but for the last decade I've been mostly focusing on national security issues and various policies and politics around that.
The midterm elections seem to be on everyone’s minds at the moment. Considering each of you are pretty immersed in the political universe, what are some of your takeaways from the midterm season thus far, and what predictions might you share based on your own experiences and expertise?
Xochitl Hinojosa: I think this is a really difficult year for Democrats, or it's supposed to be a difficult year for Democrats. When you’re the party in power you tend to lose one or two chambers. While a lot of people thought that this would be the case a few months ago, I think there is now a tide in the direction of the Democrats keeping the Senate and losing the House. Republicans had a real opportunity to define Democrats and to continue to message on the economy, but they lost that. They made a number of mistakes, including recruitment failures, and they have invested in candidates that might result in Democrats keeping the Senate. I also think Roe v. Wade is something to look out for. Democrats needed a reason to turn out our voters, and I think Roe v. Wade will definitely, definitely help.
Terry McAuliffe: I agree. I think the Senate looks very good for the Democrats, but I think the House is tough. Roe v. Wade was a game changer. Totally changed the dynamics of politics. I mean, for the first time in 50 years we have seen our government actually take away rights from someone and there’s a backlash. You saw it in Kansas, and you've seen it in recent congressional elections. And you know, the Democrats have had some wins. Obviously the CHIPS bill was very important. You saw the infrastructure bill was passed, and the Build Back Better bill passed where you can negotiate prescription drug prices. So we're in a totally different place than we were last year, and I think Trump is in a different place than he was last year. I think he got hurt when he came out and supported Putin. I think he got hurt during the January 6 hearings, and I think he really has been hurting with Mara-Largo and all the issues on that. So it's a tough year for the President's party, but there are a lot of dynamics that have shifted the wind in our direction. I think it's going to be a really interesting election night, and I don't think it's just going to be an immediate red wave.
Katie Harbath: This is an election too where the local races are really, really important. Particularly regarding election officials, whether election deniers are going to get elected or not, and then what that means for 2024.
The GU Politics slogan is “public service is a good thing, politics can be too.” However, I know just from my own personal experience that even many civically-minded peers in my cohort have a less than optimistic view of the current state of our politics. Is there any advice or commentary you could provide our generation to keep us believing that slogan is more than just a catchy saying?
Alex Lundry: The shortest and I think best advice I can give you is that politics is unavoidable. It's unavoidable. No matter what you're doing, if you want to get things done, you have to deal with the political consequences. You have to navigate that terrain. Don't imagine that you can put yourself in a place where you can isolate yourself from it. That's not a very inspirational message. I think it's maybe a practical message, though, right? Because I went through a time when I thought I could isolate myself from it. But you can't.
Mary Elizabeth Taylor: I guess I would say, to everyone here who's interested in politics and public service, at the end of the day it's all about the people, right? And it's up to the next generation, if you all are interested in going into this field. You all have the power to shift politics how you all want it to be. I think the next generation has a lot of power and you all can use it.
Karoun A. Demirjian: We're going through a period in which we're trying to figure out how to navigate an environment in which truth isn't necessarily what's always being traded around the public sphere. I mean, look, disinformation is a real thing that is not just Twitter. Now how do we as journalists maintain our objectivity, our non affiliation, our neutrality? And yet still call a spade a spade? You know, when a politician lies, do you report? That is a straight news story. At a time in which people are accusing each other of various ills, and in which there are assaults on the system, it's tricky. It's tricky for journalists to figure out how to do our jobs in a political space that's getting so much more polarized, much uglier, and not just in traditional politics. How do we do our job? But the optimism is that our jobs are incredibly important right now. Because if we are not doing them, there’s no cop on the beat holding the powerful to account. And those moments of transition can be daunting, but they can also be exhilarating because you know that the work that you're doing is important and figuring out how to do it right also matters.
So going to more international news, in the wake of Queen Elizabeth’s passing yesterday much of the British community and the world appears to be unified in mourning one of history’s most visible public figures. It got me to think, considering the wide diversity of opinion and sentiment in our nation and quite frankly in this room, are there still ideas and institutions that unify our society considering the climate of polarization?
Terry McAuliffe: I'd say first of all, since you're talking with students, that you are the future and you gotta exercise that right. You gotta vote. And traditionally in this country, the youth vote has not come out. And I just look at the next generation. I worry about where we are today with democracy, the assault on democracy, and the idea that elections are stolen. This is so damaging to us. You talk about the international community looking at this country now, saying what's going on in America? We're the greatest democracy, and yet all we hear is somehow the election was stolen. You want to counter all that. I think it's up to you, the young people. You've got to vote. You’ve got to vote in record numbers. Now you see Roe v Wade, if that doesn't energize young people, taking away a woman’s right to make her own decision about her body, I don't know what will. We are the greatest democracy. But, your generation has got to step up to the plate and get engaged. It matters who's in politics. That's exactly why we're all in politics, whether you like it or not. And if you want to change it, you can't sit on the outside complaining. Well, get in it and support your candidate. But do that in a positive, upbeat way. There’s too much negativity in politics today. You and I can disagree, but that doesn't mean you and I can't be great friends. We are the greatest democracy in the world and it's really up to you to take it to the next level.
Karoun A. Demirjian: People tend to look for heroes to fix things. We're at a moment right now where we're trying to decide if the way democracies work—the way that our society and our politics work—is based around the ideals of what American democracy was supposed to be. Are we an institutional democracy or are we going more populist? And moments like this remind you that, yeah, heroes mean something. They’re a model of how people think and how people function. But there's a good side and a bad side to all of those things. So when you're talking about getting involved there is a lot that happens below the level of the Heads of State. And there are so many things that matter in terms of things people do and things people cover that are not always as recognizable.
Katie Harbath : If I could just reflect on that really quickly—rather than saying somebody should do something about that, say it should be me that does it. Stop looking for others to find solutions.
Xochitl Hinojosa: It's unfortunate that it's around major terrible events that we start acting. Look at the Court decision on Roe. Then you saw the ballot measure in Kansas and saw Republicans, Democrats, and independents turn out and say clearly that they respect and want a woman to make her decisions about her body. Then you also have the Uvalde shooting, which is terrible. It hit a 90% Latino community. But what happened as a result? We passed bipartisan gun reform. And so I do think that while there are these tragic events that are happening in our country, we're moving in somewhat the right direction to really make changes.
Karoun A. Demirjian: It's not always the big person, but the little guy that matters. In journalism the example of that is the detriment from the loss of local news outlets. And people paying attention to what's happening in places that are not DC and are not necessarily on the front page of the New York Times. Those stories, from places outside of DC or the front pages of the New York Times, are the things that matter tremendously and that make or break politicians. They also matter to journalists who try to understand what's going on. And so that's kind of like a parallel to show that it's not just about the person at the top.
Alex Lundry: I think structurally it is harder than ever for us to have collective heroes as a nation. We're talking about Queen Elizabeth, but she comes from a different time when it was possible to have those heroes. The balkanization of the media certainly has a lot to do with that. The isolation of communities, which are becoming more and more homogeneous. We're being less and less engaged in civic organizations. We're not putting ourselves out there and interacting with people who are different from us, so it's harder for us to have truly national heroes anymore. The bottom-up solution to that is a much easier task, which is being the optimist—avoiding snark, avoiding pessimism. Just the way we talk to each other and about each other. I think the internet is a rot, which affects a lot of the conversations and makes it harder for us to have those sorts of heroes. So I think it starts with each of us not being so snarky on Twitter.
Thank you all so much for giving me your time.
Zach Fotiadis is a senior staff writer for On the Record originally from Miami, Florida. He is currently a junior in the School of Foreign Service studying International Politics with a minor in history.