I’ve never gotten to work for a mayor who tweets about eating an LSD-spiked turkey burger. I’ve also never worked for a member of Congress whose Instagram Lives get more eyeballs than most politicians’ cable news hits.
Lauren Hitt has. She’s helped everyone from AOC to the Harris-Walz campaign communicate in ways that still felt authentic to them. More than one person interviewed for this newsletter has told me that when facing a tough call, they ask themselves “what would Lauren do?” After connecting with Lauren this week, I get it.
I think you’ll enjoy hearing Lauren’s insight on when to turn down the TV interview, working with Democrats in different wings of the party, and not stamping the humanity out of the leaders we work for.
This is ON BACKGROUND:
5 short questions. 5 quick responses on what’s working, what isn’t, and what comes next featuring the wisdom of Lauren Hitt, former Communications Director for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Harris For President Spokesperson who’s set up her own shingle advising candidates and causes.
Lauren, as someone who’s worked for some of the best communicators in the party, any insight you can share on the balance between advising a principal without stifling what makes people like them in the first place?
If you’re working with someone who is a natural communicator, then my best advice is just to get out of the way. Let them be brilliant, and do the stuff they need you to do very well, so they have the bandwidth to be creative. To that point, being a ‘natural communicator’ still takes a lot of preparation and energy. Just because it looks like your principal can turn it on like a light switch, doesn’t mean you should be asking them to do that all the time.
If you’re working for someone who is not a natural communicator, then I think your job is to identify where they are at their best and then find a way to shine a spotlight on it. Do not just do what everyone else is doing. Don’t chase the trend. Figure out what people love about your principal or where they look their best and then figure out how press, influencers, etc can highlight that strength. It’s my feeling that politicians really break through when they’re most themselves.
Any specific examples come to mind? Selfishly I’d love to hear about how you advise someone as dynamic as AOC.
I really do not walk around telling people that I advised AOC lol. To my earlier point, in that gig, my guiding principle was to keep the trains running, so she had the energy and bandwidth to be her.
I learned an enormous amount from just watching her, including this idea that politicians break through most effectively when they are doing something only they could do. I was working for her when the Dobbs decision came down. She instantly went to the demonstration that was gathering at the Supreme Court. It was very powerful. She took the bullhorn and someone gave her a green bandana, which is the symbol of reproductive rights movements in Latin America. After, as we were walking back to the Capitol, I remember someone on the team asking, so do we do an interview now? We were swamped with requests. I was fairly stunned by the news itself, but I just remember saying, I don’t think we should. Why would we do anything other than what she just did? She was amazing, it was such a natural space for her. So, she went back to her district and spoke at another demonstration in New York that night. People were so angry, and to some extent so angry with Democrats, after Dobbs. They didn’t want to see us giving staid cable interviews. They wanted us in the streets, and she was very, very natural there.
Is there a candidate or officeholder for whom you’ve thrown out the rule book to play to their strengths? And how so?
One of my first jobs was working for a very colorful mayor in Philadelphia. I loved him. I loved that job. Philly is the greatest city in the world, and I will die on that hill.
When I started working for him, back in 2015, reporters would always bring up his Twitter account because he had posted some pretty kooky stuff. I don’t mean like, Abolish ICE. He once tweeted, ‘I think someone put LSD in my Turkey burger.’ So on Day 1, I was like sir, please hand me your Twitter account, that is no longer yours. I was 24, and I was dead wrong. People loved that he had a personality. And because he’d been a really good Councilman for twenty years, no one doubted he could do the job - the tweets were just a fun sprinkle. Our digital director was really smart about running with that too, Stephanie Waters. She had him do videos where he’d respond to mean tweets from Philadelphians, and just really leaned into it. Our politicians are supposed to be people, stamping out their humanity in the interest of avoiding any kind of criticism is generally a bad move.
What do you want to shout from the rooftops?
I’ve worked for the Left and for more moderate Democrats. I used to be pretty self-conscious about the fact that I went back and forth because it seemed like everyone else just picked a team and stayed there. But now I am begging, begging people to be willing to hire across our Party’s ideological spectrum.
We all have things to learn from each other. The Left is clearly good at exciting people at a time where the Democratic Party brand is in the basement. The establishment could afford to be less defensive and more curious about that.
On the other hand, The Left still has some work to do to expand their victories into purple and red areas. We should be open to learning from people who have won those races - maybe also be open to shifting some messaging without seeing it as a complete capitulation of values. And this is where I’ll plug a recent survey from the Center for Working Class Politics, a pretty left-leaning group, which has some really smart findings about how progressives could win over working class voters on social issues, like police accountability, immigration reform, LGBTQ+ rights. Anyone who says we have to abandon those policies is dead wrong, in my opinion. But it’s pretty clear, we have to be willing to try out some different things to reach voters for whom those issues are not the top priority because they’re struggling to put food on the table.
Anyone you think we should talk to next?
Emily Minster. She’s what the next generation of Communications operatives will look like. She can do it all - box with the New York City press, engage with influencers, keep a good eye out for social. I worked with her on Brad Lander’s race this spring, and she’s now on Zohran’s team working with new media.
Thanks for your time, Lauren.