The Film Archives's video: Women in Politics - Kellyanne Conway

Kellyanne Elizabeth Fitzpatrick was born on January 20, 1967, in Atco, New Jersey, to Diane (née DiNatale) and John Fitzpatrick.[14][15] Conway's father had German, English, and Irish ancestry, while her mother is of Italian descent;[16] John Fitzpatrick owned a small trucking company, and Diane worked at a bank. Conway was abandoned by her father, and her parents divorced when she was three.[17][18] She was raised by her mother, grandmother and two unmarried aunts in the Atco section of Waterford Township, New Jersey, and graduated from St. Joseph High School in 1985, where she sang in the choir, played field hockey, worked on floats for parades, and was a cheerleader.[19] A 1992 New Jersey Organized Crime Commission report identified Conway's grandfather, Jimmy "The Brute" DiNatale, as a mob associate of the Philadelphia crime family; DiNatale did not reside with Conway's grandmother, Conway, and the rest of her family.[17] Conway's cousin, Mark DeMarco, has stated that while in high school, Conway ordered members of the football team to stop bullying him; according to DeMarco, the bullying stopped.[20] Her family is Catholic.[14][21][22] Conway credits her experience working for eight summers on a blueberry farm in Hammonton, New Jersey, for teaching her a strong work ethic. "The faster you went, the more money you'd make," she said. At age 16, she won the New Jersey Blueberry Princess pageant. At age 20, she won the World Champion Blueberry Packing competition: "Everything I learned about life and business started on that farm."[22] Conway graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Trinity College, Washington, D.C. (now Trinity Washington University), where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.[23] She earned a Juris Doctor with honors from the George Washington University Law School in 1992.[24] After graduation, she served as a judicial clerk for Judge Richard A. Levie of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.[25] When the 2016 election campaigns got underway, Conway had been acquainted with Donald Trump for years, because she lived in Trump World Tower from 2001 to 2008 and sat on the condo board.[4] Yet she initially endorsed Ted Cruz in the 2016 Republican presidential primary and chaired a pro-Cruz political action committee known as Keep the Promise I, which was almost entirely funded by businessman Robert Mercer.[40][41] Conway's organization criticized Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as "extreme" and "not a conservative".[5][6] On January 25, 2016, Conway criticized Trump as "a man who seems to be offending his way to the nomination."[42] On January 26, Conway criticized Trump's use of eminent domain, saying "Donald Trump has literally bulldozed over the little guy to get his way."[43] In mid-June 2016, Cruz suspended his campaign and Conway left.[44] On July 1, 2016, Trump announced that he had hired Conway for a senior advisory position on his presidential campaign.[45] Conway was expected to advise Trump on how to better appeal to female voters.[45] On August 19, following the resignation of Paul Manafort, Trump named Conway the campaign's third campaign manager.[27][46] She served in this capacity for 10 weeks, through the November 8 general election, and was the first woman to successfully run an American presidential campaign,[1] and the first woman to run a Republican general election presidential campaign.[46] Since October 2016, Conway has been satirized on Saturday Night Live, in which she is portrayed by Kate McKinnon.[47][48][49] In a January 2017 interview, Conway acknowledged the SNL parody by noting that, "Kate McKinnon clearly sees the road to the future runs through me and not Hillary."[50][51] On November 10, 2016, Conway tweeted publicly that Trump had offered her a White House job.[52] "I can have any job I want", she said on November 28.[53] On November 24, Conway tweeted that she was "Receiving deluge of social media & private comms re: Romney. Some Trump loyalists warn against Romney as sec of state" with a link to an article on Trump loyalists' discontent for the 2012 nominee. Conway told CNN she was only tweeting what she has shared with President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence in private.[54] On November 28, two top sources at the Trump transition team told media outlets that Trump "was furious" at Conway for media comments she made on Trump administration cabinet appointments.[55] The following day, however, Trump released a written statement stating that the campaign sources were wrong and that he had expressed disappointment at her critical comments on Romney.[56] CNBC reported on November 28 that senior officials in the Trump transition "have reportedly been growing frustrated by Conway's failure to become a team player." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellyanne_Conway