Paradox of Kellyanne Conway: A smart political operative prone to rhetorical missteps

Mark DeMarco had a problem. He was obese — tipping the scale at almost 400 pounds, he says. He was also shy, an easy target for bullies on the football team at his South Jersey high school.

No one came to his defense, except a brainy field hockey player who happened to be his cousin — Kellyanne Conway.

As DeMarco tells the story — and Conway, now the protective if slightly gaffe-prone special counsel to President Donald Trump, confirmed recently — she ordered the football team in the mid-1980s to leave her overweight cousin alone. To DeMarco’s surprise, he was never bullied again.

Today, DeMarco, 50, and a successful business contractor in the Atlantic City area, recalls the story as a barometer of why Conway has emerged as one of Trump’s most trusted advisers — but also why she continues to court trouble.

“Kellyanne wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone,” DeMarco said. “To think Kelly is afraid is laughable. Kellyanne, in spirit, can be much bigger than some of the biggest offensive and defensive linemen on the football team.  She had force with her words.  Her spirit was strong.  People listened to her.”

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People are still listening — notably Trump.

Conway, 50, who lives in Alpine with her husband and four children, is considered one of the most powerful political operatives in the Republican Party. She is not only the first woman in U.S. history to guide a winning presidential campaign, she has emerged as one of Trump’s closest advisers — his feisty defender on TV and reportedly one of his most influential voices in private, nicknamed The Trump Whisperer.

Conway is also a paradox.

While few doubt her talents as a political strategist, she has become most known now for her penchant for plunging into rhetorical potholes. In the first 50 days of the Trump administration, the litany of Conway missteps has become a staple of late-night comedy, notably with the cast of "Saturday Night Live."

The string of problems began with her proclamation of “alternative facts” when trying to claim that record-setting crowds witnessed Trump’s inauguration when photographs clearly showed the gathering was smaller than other inaugurations. They continued with her false claim of a terrorist massacre by Islamist militants in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and her ethics-bending proclamation during a TV news interview that people should buy clothes marketed by Trump’s daughter Ivanka. They continued when photographs appeared of her kneeling on a sofa in the Oval Office as a group of African-American college presidents visited Trump.

Earlier this week, Conway stirred up yet another controversy that rocketed across the internet, the cable TV talk shows, late-night comedy sketches and social media.

In an exclusive interview with The Record and NorthJersey.com at her home last Sunday, Conway tried to lend support to Trump’s so-far-unfounded claim that President Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump’s campaign headquarters in Manhattan during the presidential race by suggesting the plot was far more extensive. Asked if she knew whether Trump Tower was wiretapped, Conway said, “What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other now, unfortunately.”

Conway then suggested that “you can surveil someone through their phones” and “certainly through their television sets” and “any number of different ways and microwaves that turn into cameras.”

The video was shared by NorthJersey.com and immediately went viral. Critics seized on the suggestion that microwaves and televisions were used to spy on Trump. The next day, Conway scrambled to play down her statement, suggesting it was “fake news."

Conway said she pays little attention to criticism. She dismissed many critics as “a bunch of people who still just can't believe that Hillary Clinton lost the election.”

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Her admirers, many of them stalwarts of the conservative movement, view such comments gleefully. To them, Conway’s punch-hard barbs are viewed as heroic — just the sort of populist criticism of Democrats and other progressive “elites” that helped propel Trump to victory.

In person, Conway can appear low-key and almost professorial, especially when she discusses the mechanics of analyzing polling numbers or running a campaign. But she can just as quickly switch rhetorical gear and fire off the sort of one-liner that is typical of her combative style.

For instance, in the interview Conway said she feels rejected by feminists because of her anti-abortion views. “The sisterhood is fake,” she said.

Too many feminists, she said, don't accept conservative, anti-abortion women.

“They mainly care about what happens from the waist down,” Conway said. "It's an insult. You know, it's for the waist up for me — my eyes, my ears, my head, my heart, my mouth certainly.” Conway spoke about the calls from critics to her office, acknowledging that she had listened in on quite a few without telling the callers they were speaking with her. Most were opposed to her views on abortion, she said.

She was sharply critical of the women's marches held the weekend after the inauguration. "Some of us," she added, "are too busy raising our kids instead of raising havoc.”

In The Record interview, she continued to defend one of her most-criticized statements  — that the media should consider “alternative facts” in measuring the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration. “Here are some alternative facts for you — partly cloudy, partly sunny; the glass half full, the glass half empty,” she said.

Conway has a keen understanding of how to deliver her message. After graduating from law school at George Washington University, she founded her consulting firm, The Polling Co., whose clients have included American Express and Hasbro. She became recognized for her polling and political strategies, often appearing on television with other conservative commentators. She is the co-author of "What Women Really Want," a market-analysis book about women's attitudes. Conway has worked for many high-profile Republicans, including Newt Gingrich and Vice President Mike Pence when he was serving in Congress. She backed Sen.Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for the presidency before being hired by Trump last summer to run his campaign.

Jeffrey Bell, a former staffer in the Nixon and Reagan administrations who has run unsuccessfully several times for U.S. Senate from New Jersey, has known Conway for several decades. He said she brings a sense of calm to her political analysis.

“I don’t think she really loses her cool,” he said.  “I’ve never seen her lose her cool, and that’s not that easy to do.”

Many critics, however, increasingly view Conway as a divisive distraction — a potential embarrassment to the White House and the presidency as an institution.

“The Trump administration seems to be setting a new low standard of professionalism and historical awareness and judgment,” said Kenneth Jackson, a Columbia University history professor. “It’s all about loyalty to Trump, and Kellyanne Conway seems to fit that mold. Her claim to fame seems to be that no matter what Trump says, she’ll get in and defend it.”

“She’s made a deal with the devil,” Jackson added.  “She’s going to ride that horse all the way.”

Conway’s recent comments about a possible wider surveillance plot sparked some of the most severe criticism of her yet — as well as gales of laughter.

After playing a video clip of Conway's reference to surveillance by TVs and microwaves, Shepherd Smith of Fox News described her as someone “we really don’t quote anymore because, well, history” and “whose previous words have been up for debate.” On CNN, Carl Bernstein, whose investigation of the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s earned a Pulitzer Prize for The Washington Post and forced President Richard Nixon to leave the White House, said, “It’s time we stopped taking Kellyanne Conway seriously. She’s not a serious person.”

Conway brushes off such criticism, saying she has been misinterpreted — and mistreated.

“I've never been able to understand why people criticize somebody so severely that they don't know,” Conway said.

She went on to claim that she is “a victim of the usual sexist, tasteless jokes, often from women” or others, including a remark in which Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Louisiana Democrat, implied that Conway’s kneeling on the Oval Office couch implied some sort of sexual flirtation.

Richmond later denied he meant any sexual connotation. But he was nevertheless harshly criticized by women’s rights activists.

Conway, while clearly angry with Richmond’s attempted joke, insisted that such criticism does not sway her.

"You know, they're barking up the wrong tree because it doesn't really bother me,” she said. “It confounds me much more than it bothers me.

“It will hurt girls and women who aren't as tough as I am or as old as I am or as seasoned and experienced as I am,” Conway said, adding, “I'm not a very sympathetic target for lots of people because I'm not what they expect a woman to be.”

That sense of being targeted has taken an ominous turn. In the days leading up to Trump’s inauguration, a letter arrived at Conway’s home in Alpine. Conway’s husband, George, an influential lawyer reportedly chosen by Trump to head the Justice Department's civil division, opened it to find a mysterious white powder. This was followed by numerous telephone threats, Conway said.

Soon after, a team of Secret Service agents was assigned to protect the Conway family.  With her Secret Service bodyguards in tow, Conway, who rents an apartment in Washington near the White House, commutes home on weekends to spend time with her family. Conway said her family plans to move to Washington this summer.

Conway’s multifaceted roles of political operative, presidential adviser and wife and mother was on full display last Sunday during her interview with The Record. Between combing 7-year-old Charlotte’s hair or listening to 12-year-old Claudia practice “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on the family’s Steinway baby grand piano, Conway took a call from the White House, confirmed plans with her husband as he walked out the door to chauffeur the children to a party and then sat down on a sofa with a pillow celebrating New Jersey landmarks to discuss her role at the White House.

Conway acknowledges that her life is hectic — perhaps too much sometimes.  She welcomes it.

“I'm a product of my choices, even the bad choices I made along the way or the wrong turns,” she said.  “I don't feel like a victim of my circumstance. You can only feel badly with your own permission.”

“Kellyanne is the type of person, when she loves, she loves with her whole heart,” said Marlena McMahon of Norwood, who first met Conway when they were class mothers for a kindergarten class at the Elisabeth Morrow School in Englewood.

McMahon, 40, considers Conway to be the equivalent of an older sister. On Christmas Day — McMahon’s birthday — Conway has routinely come to her door with a present, including this past Christmas when Conway took time away from her duties with the Trump administration.

Friends also point to Conway’s Catholicism as another key pillar that guides her personality and politics. She regularly attends Mass at her parish, St. Mary’s in Closter. She also spoke at the Right-to-Life March in Washington.

As her pastor from St. Mary’s, the Rev. Paul Cannariato, watched from the crowd that day in Washington, he said he was struck by how Conway had “fully integrated her Catholic faith and beliefs into her life.”

“She has a luminous clarity,” Cannariato said.

Some observers say Conway’s role as the pugilistic defender of Trump — and her recent missteps — obscures many other talents and has tarnished her long reputation as a pollster and analyst of social trends.

“I don’t think these gaffes are particularly reflective of her overall style,” said David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers University and author of the 2016 book “Republic of Spin:  An Inside History of the American Presidency.”

“We’re at a moment here — there is so little willingness to cut anyone slack in this political environment,” Greenberg said. “A small gaffe or poor choice of words can explode into being seen as a lie, a fabrication, an alternate reality.”

For her part, Conway says she does not plan to back away from confronting her critics.

She said she is “living proof that if you work really hard and you believe in yourself and you don't let other people cut you down,” you can succeed.

But she acknowledges that luck also played a key role in her success.

“I got my break,” she said. “I got lucky a couple times along the way, but certainly with Donald Trump.”

Email:  Kellym@northjersey.com

Twitter:  @MikeKellyColumn