September 2008 

The Race for Madame President:
Reflections from Kiki McLean

by Dara McCoy

Austin College alumna Kiki McLean reveals what life was like as a senior campaign advisor for the final six months of Hillary Clinton’s historic run for the White House.

Emily Austin may have been stretching conventional boundaries for women in the mid-1800s, but in 2008, the United States witnessed a truly historic moment in the pursuit of equality during the Democratic primary. Catherine “Kiki” Moore McLean ’85, a principal at Dewey Square Group, a Washington, D.C., public affairs firm, had a front row seat while acting as a senior campaign adviser for the final six months of Senator Hillary Clinton’s race to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

McLean traces the “first step in my career” to her senior year at Austin College when she worked on U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett’s senate campaign. Though McLean never took a political science course at Austin College, majoring in communication arts, her career interest in media within the framework of politics sent her to Washington, D.C., after graduation. McLean’s first job was with the Pamela Harriman, President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to France. From there, McLean joined Dick Gephardt’s 1987 presidential campaign, managing scheduling operations, and eventually, went into agency public affairs.

McLean has been the spokesperson for the Democratic Leadership Council, press secretary and adviser to Tipper Gore during the 1992 general election, press secretary to Vice President Al Gore's presidential campaign, and communications director and national spokesperson to Senator Joseph Lieberman's vice presidential campaign in 2000. It was no surprise that Hillary Clinton’s campaign called on McLean to serve as a national spokesperson and campaign adviser as the final stretch of the primary season neared.

“My role was in the communication shop and in the war room, talking to the team to organize and drive the message every day,” McLean said. “I worked with the national circuit program to move as many spokespeople as possible from the local, state, and national level through free media across the country.”

McLean’s role became particularly grueling as Clinton fought for voters in 22 states on Super Tuesday. “It was seven days a week, 24/7,” she said. “There were many nights I found myself on conference calls until one o’clock in the morning, when there were more conference calls scheduled at 8 a.m.” The round-the-clock job was particularly difficult for McLean’s husband and two children, ages 6 and 3. “My husband really stepped up to the plate, even more extraordinary given that he’s an Obama supporter,” McLean said.

The impact of McLean’s hectic schedule was evident on one rare morning when she was able to take her 3-year-old daughter, Annie, to preschool. The teacher wanted to show McLean her daughter’s journal, consisting of drawings and recorded interviews describing those drawings. “My daughter had scribbled on a piece of paper and her interview said that is was a picture of momma, papa, her brother, Annie, and our two dogs, but Annie is crying,” McLean said. “They asked, ‘Why is Annie crying?’ and she said, ‘Because my momma is in the TV and can’t come home.’ I cried the whole way to the campaign headquarters, but I knew what I was doing had value for her in the long run in ways that she may not have understood.”

At the time, the value was in the possibility of the first female presidential nominee. On January 8, 2008, Hillary Clinton had become the first woman to win a major party’s presidential primary in delegate selection when she won New Hampshire. “You certainly have to look up and say America experienced a historic moment this year in the role that Hillary Clinton played,” McLean said. It was a moment made no less historic when Hillary conceded the race to the nation’s first black presidential candidate, Barack Obama in June. In the end, she was the closest any woman has ever been to being elected president of the United States.
 

September 2008 

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Gender and race both played roles in the Democratic primaries, occasionally resulting in some unflattering moments, McLean said. “I was caught off guard by the ease with which some people could toss off a blatantly sexist comment, usually in the media, but there seemed to be little repercussion or response,” McLean said. Yet, to McLean the good far outweighed the bad. “What we experienced in terms of her campaign was recognition and admission by our country that they had met a woman they feel is qualified to serve as commander-in-chief,” she said.

Clinton addressed her role in history during her concession speech on June 7 in Washington, D.C.  “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you it’s got about 18 million cracks in it,” said Clinton, referring to the 18 million votes she garnered during her campaign. “There are no acceptable limits and there are no acceptable prejudices in the 21st century. You can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories, unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable that a woman can be the president of the United States. And that is truly remarkable.”

In whatever form, women have come a long way since Emily Austin. “My children will never know a time in their lives when a woman and a person of color weren’t viable candidates for president,” McLean said. Through the culmination of many women’s efforts, whether facing a desperate need to support a frontier family despite social norms or personal sacrifices resulting in tearful commutes to the campaign headquarters of a woman competitively running for president, today provides more equal footing for women than ever before.

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