KIRSTIN BROST Hey, Christine, hire this woman!
Posted on 02/06/2005 7:56:53 PM PST by Josef1235
THE MESSENGER Meet the Badass Democrat Washington Can't Afford to Lose by Josh Feit
Kirstin Brost agreed to be interviewed on the condition that we do it over drinks at her favorite hangout, the Five Point Cafe--the lumpen prole bar near the northern edge of downtown. The alcohol was having its effect: The salaried Democratic Party official ended up telling me that she still "doesn't know what John Kerry's position on Iraq was" and that Al Sharpton was the best candidate in the Dem field. ("Howard Dean had nothing on Al," Brost, 27, says with a smile.) She also allows that "Oh my God," George Bush's designs on social security "make me want to vomit."
It'd be easy to blame Brost's candor on her margarita, but I've seen Brost's sober handiwork too, and it's equally off-leash. During the brief period when Dino Rossi was the state's governor elect, for example, Brost took to calling the Republican a "thief" and the "accidental governor elect"; and in her finest moment, she published a simple five-line statement (something of a limerick) in late December titled "Putting the Rossi in Hypocrossi" that juxtaposed Rossi's contradictory "Before and After" statements, as he went from proud governor-elect to sore loser.
What makes Brost's trash talk so refreshing is that it's published on official Washington State Democrat letterhead. Brost--who was James Carville's political assistant and house-sitter when she was just 21, and subsequently headed up rapid response for the U.S. Congressional Dems under Democratic Assistant Leader U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) in 2001--has been the spokeswoman and communications director for the Washington State Democrats since arriving in Washington State in 2003. In that role, she's made a habit of bombarding reporters with opposition research packaged in comedic, low-key press releases that typically undercut Republican bombast with a dose of pithy truth-squading. "FYI," her official releases can begin slyly, before delivering a list of blistering facts that savage Republican speaking points. "I get bored writing boring press releases," she says.
Brost, a tall and traditionally pretty Wisconsin woman (she resembles a younger Maria Cantwell), says her Midwestern roots are all you need to know to understand her MO. "I love cheese. I love sausage. And I'm not afraid to be the only girl in a roomful of guys." She describes her family as Midwest progressives who believe in FDR.
And she's got some salt-of-the-earth wisdom for Democrats: "We worry so much: 'Are we too far left or too far right?' Those discussions get us nowhere. What we need is leadership. Someone that makes you pay attention."
Brost's gig with the Washington State Democrats is up in two weeks. The job was actually supposed to be over on November 3, but she's stayed onboard cleaning up the mess that Christine Gregoire's clumsy gubernatorial campaign handed off. She's shined in that emergency role. ("They don't have a case," she says of the Republicans. "They need to prove that illegal votes cost Rossi the election, but they don't have that. What they have is PR and BS.") Brost even won special notice from the New York Times for ruffling Washington State's tradition for polite politics when they covered the recount story.
I met with Brost because I wanted to know what she was planning to do next. It'd be a shame if local Democrats lost her talent. (She's a skilled message maven who says she was inspired by Carville's ability to come up with an idea at the office in the morning and then "at five o'clock, we'd see people repeating it on TV.") Brost says simply that after a much-needed vacation, she'll come back to Washington to find political work "with smart people, aggressive people, people who aren't afraid to shake things up."
Hmmm, sounds like a dare to me. Hopefully, for the Democrats' sake, the typically tepid Party will meet Brost's challenge. I, for one, hope the Gregoire camp in particular recognizes how talented Brost is and hires her as the governor's spokeswoman. Hiring Brost, in fact, would satisfy another dare that Brost laid down over drinks at the Five Point. Asked what the Gregoire administration needs to do to erase the asterisk that comes with its unconvincing 129-vote victory, Brost smiled: "Governor Gregoire cannot be overly cautious." Hiring Brost would be a promising start toward fulfilling that advice.
Like, fer sure! Totally, gag me with a spoon.
She's just a lefty liberal loon...
What a class act.
Reads like a desperate DU gossip post. The dims are in more trouble than I thought.
well, she sure played Joshy right, didn't she?
(ya can't buy help like that, LOL)
George Bush's designs on social security "make me want to vomit."
Translation: "hey moderate Dems: bend over, stop whining, let the lefties run the party."
Really! It would be so bad if we were to take our money back from the socialists in the government and use it for our own gain. Because only government is responsible with money.
Ms. Brost: Hope you wake up soon...it's never too late!
aanyone who would associate themselves with De Lauro has
to be suspect
I'd rather gag her with a chainsaw.
It sounds very much as if neither the writer of this piece nor the young woman he was interviewing have every tried to put their brains in gear.
"Gag me with a spoon" is much too thoughtful for either of them.
"delivering a list of blistering facts that savage Republican speaking points"
If "Bush's designs on social security make me want to vomit" is a sample - I wouldn't exactly call that statement a "blistering fact", but typical democrat whining.
They can't afford to lose some staffer who drinks too much and knows too little? Why, is she the next ted kennedy?
Idiot Democratic operatives make me want to go out and run up hills in the rain in my combat boots. And I'm pushing 50. The vomit, we train. A hard rains gonna fall, for sure, b*tch.
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