Ed Gillespie
Edward Walter Gillespie is an American politician, strategist, and lobbyist who served as the sixty-first chair of the Republican National Committee from 2003 to 2005 and was counselor to the president from 2007 to 2009 during the presidency of George W. Bush. In 2012, Gillespie was a senior member of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign.
Gillespie founded the bipartisan lobbying firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates with Jack Quinn, and founded Ed Gillespie Strategies.
Gillespie ran in the 2014 United States Senate election in Virginia. Gillespie narrowly lost to incumbent Mark Warner by a margin of 0.8%. Gillespie ran for governor of Virginia in the 2017 election. After winning the Republican primary, he was defeated in the general election by Democratic nominee Ralph Northam; Gillespie received 1.17 million votes to Northam's 1.40 million in the election.
In 2020, Gillespie was hired by AT&T to serve as senior executive vice president for external and legislative affairs. Previously, he served as co-chairman of Sard Verbinnen & Co.'s public affairs practice.
Early life
Edward Walter Gillespie was born on August 1, 1961, in Mount Holly, New Jersey, and raised in the Browns Mills section of Pemberton Township, New Jersey. He is the son of Conny and Sean Patrick Gillespie, an immigrant from Ireland who grew up in North Philadelphia. His parents owned a small grocery store in New Jersey, and Gillespie worked there after school.Gillespie is a graduate of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and Pemberton Township High School. While at CUA he began his career on Capitol Hill as a U.S. Senate parking lot attendant. One of his co-workers there was an intern for Representative Andy Ireland of Florida, and through him, Gillespie got the same job after he graduated from college.
Political career
Gillespie, raised in a Democratic family, began his political career as intern for Andy Ireland, at the time a Democrat from Florida. In 1984, Ireland joined the Republican party with Gillespie following, saying, "I liked President Reagan's approach to governing and it just made sense to me." In his book, Winning Right, Gillespie described himself as someone who "all but had 'Democrat' stamped on his birth certificate," but had become increasingly uncomfortable with the leftward tilt of the national party and believed it wasn't taking the threat of Communism seriously. As he saw it, he and Ireland were classic Reagan Democrats who became Republicans–"a southern conservative and a young northeastern ethnic Catholic who no longer felt comfortable in the party of their heritage."Gillespie worked as telephone solicitor for the Republican National Committee in 1985, and later worked for a decade as a top aide to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, and was a principal drafter of the GOP's 1994 "Contract With America."
In 1996, Gillespie served as communications director for the RNC. In 1999, Gillespie worked as the Press Secretary for the Presidential campaign of John Kasich until his withdrawal from the race and endorsement of George W. Bush. In 2000, Gillespie served as senior communications advisor for the presidential campaign of Bush, organizing the party convention program in Philadelphia for Bush's nomination and Bush's inauguration ceremony. He played an aggressive role as spokesman for the Bush campaign during the vote recount in Florida. In 2002, he was a strategist for Elizabeth Dole's 2002 Senate campaign.
Lobbyist
In 1997, Gillespie joined the lobbying firm BGR Group, and advised Senate Republicans during the impeachment of Bill Clinton.In 2000, Gillespie founded the lobbying firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates with Jack Quinn, and within a year had an income of $8.5 million and was 11th on Fortune's list of the most powerful lobbying firms in the US. One of the firm's clients was Enron, which paid it $1,225,000, including $700,000 to lobby the Department of Energy and the Executive Office of the President to resist efforts to re-regulate the western electricity market during the California Electricity Crisis. Gillespie has said that he was unaware of Enron's deceptive accounting practices. By the end of 2002, Quinn Gillespie & Associates had received $27.4 million in lobbying fees.
In 2007, Quinn Gillespie & Associates represented more than 100 clients. The firm lobbied on behalf of AT&T, Bank of America, and Microsoft in the years 2001–2007, earning more than $3.2 million. In 2016, the firm reported $17.2 million in revenue from federal lobbying. The firm pitched to potential clients that Gillespie, due to his involvement with the White House and association with individuals in power, could leverage those relationships to benefit clients.
In 2016, Gillespie lobbied on behalf of the health insurance company Anthem, as the nation's second-largest insurance firm tried to merge with third-largest insurance firm Cigna. A federal judge blocked the mergers, citing insurance regulators who said the merger would raise costs and reduce competition in the health insurance market.
Gillespie shut down his lobbying firm Ed Gillespie Strategies shortly before launching his campaign for governor in January 2017.
The conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch said that Gillespie's ties to corporations may pose a conflict of interest for him as governor, and that this is a "nonpartisan concern". Gillespie's former clients Anthem, AT&T, Microsoft, and Bank of America have ongoing interests in the state of Virginia, and these corporations or their top executives have donated to the Gillespie 2017 campaign. Gillespie voluntarily released the list of his clients, disclosing more than is required by state law.
Chairmanships of the RNC and Republican Party of Virginia
In 2003, Gillespie was selected as chairman of the RNC, serving in that role through the 2004 elections that saw President Bush win re-election and Republicans retain control of the House and Senate. He did not give up his stake in the lobbying firm when he took that job, which caused controversy. During the campaign, he was regularly referred to as "President Bush's pit bull."After his chairmanship ended, in 2005 Bush appointed Gillespie to lead the process to nominate a successor to Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court; that process led to the selection and confirmation of Samuel Alito. Gillespie also worked alongside former senator Fred Thompson the same year as one of two confirmation "sherpas" to John Roberts during his nomination process. Sherpas are advisors tasked with guiding a Supreme Court nominee through the rigors of the confirmation process. Gillespie's book Winning Right was released in September 2006.
Gillespie served as chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia from December 2006 to June 2007. In the 2006 Virginia Senate elections he served as spokesman for defeated Virginia Senator George Allen. He had been tapped by Allen as a political adviser for a possible presidential run in 2008 before that loss. In February 2009, Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell announced that Gillespie would serve as general chairman of his campaign for governor. Gillespie has served as an adviser to American Crossroads.
White House counselor
In late June 2007, President Bush brought Gillespie into the White House on a full-time basis, to replace the departing counselor to the president Dan Bartlett with the mandate to help raise Bush's flagging popularity ratings. When Karl Rove also departed in August, The Washington Post described Gillespie as stepping up to do part of Rove's job in the White House. A later Post article described Gillespie's role orchestrating a PR unit dedicated to "selling the surge to American voters and the media."Later in 2007, the Washington ''Post'' reported that Gillespie had taken a substantial pay cut to become Bush's counselor. "A disclosure form shows he made nearly $1.3 million in salary and bonus in the previous 18 months at his consulting and public affairs firm... His annual government salary is $168,000. The form, obtained by the Associated Press, reports that Gillespie... a former Capitol Hill aide who co-founded his lobbying shop in 2000... has accumulated a fortune estimated to be between $7.86 million and $19.4 million."
Post-White House
In 2009, Gillespie was the chairman of Bob McDonnell's successful campaign for governor of Virginia.In January 2010, Gillespie was announced in as the national chairman of the Republican State Leadership Committee, which helps elect state attorneys general, lieutenant governors, secretaries of state and state house and senate candidates. After Gillespie was announced chairman the RSLC is reported to have laundered $1.5 million from the Poarch Band of Creek Indians to Alabama Speaker Mike Hubbard and a group associated with Jack Abramoff. From January 2010 to January 2014 the RSLC paid Gilespie $654,000. Gillespie was not legally listed as the RSLC chairman until February 2011, when the organization filed updated documents with the IRS.
In 2010, together with Republican strategist Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie helped get the Super Pac American Crossroads "off the ground." The organization's goal was to supplement campaign spending for Republicans, independently of the Republican party. '"Obama had $1.1 billion in 2008," says Gillespie.."John McCain and his supporters spent $634 million. That's a sizable gap." American Crossroads, he boasts, will be the place where the real money goes to "play."'
In April 2012, Gillespie became a senior advisor to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.
2014 U.S. Senate run
In December 2013, Gillespie told Politico that he was considering a first-time political run in 2014 against Mark Warner, a popular Democratic incumbent U.S. Senator in Virginia.In January 2014, he officially launched his candidacy. He named Chris Leavitt, campaign manager of Mark Obenshain's 2013 run for Virginia Attorney general, his campaign manager. On June 7, 2014, he became the Republican nominee after receiving about 60% of the vote at the state party convention.
Although Warner had been consistently leading Gillespie by double-digit margins in polls before October, Gillespie nearly upset Warner on Election Day, losing by a margin of just 0.8% and 17,723 votes, with 37% turnout. Gillespie conceded the race on November 7, 2014.