When [Bobby] Jindal arrived at this newspaper's office on Oct. 4 for an interview with our editorial board, [Melissa] Sellers, who was his campaign press aide, attempted to sit in on the interview.
That's a definite "no-no" at any paper worth its salt. But when Sellers was told she had to leave, she "went into a near panic, insisting that she had to be present for the interview". According to Clancy Dubos, Sellers was "obviously shaken" and repeatedly protested the arrangement. Jindal had to tell her "It's okay" several times.
Then it got really weird:
instead of taking a seat in the foyer of our offices (as other campaign workers do), [Sellers] hovered in the hallway outside the conference room and pressed her ear to a window, trying to eavesdrop on the interview. When [the] office administrator asked her to take a seat, she moved to an adjacent conference room-- where she again was spotted with her ear to the wall, trying to hear what was being said in the interview.
Shortly thereafter, Jindal appointed Melissa Sellers to be his press secretary.
This strikes me as a small but extremely revealing episode. For Jindal's handler to get all huffy puffy about him being alone with the Gambit Weekly(!), who had celebrated Jindal's "Geek Appeal" a month earlier, is doubly bothersome. First of all, why was Sellers paranoid in such a friendly venue? Does she actually consider the Gambit to be hostile territory? And why did Sellers' expect to sit in? Had she done so at other endorsement interviews? Was she stressing over the possibility that the Gambit would do its job and ask Jindal some challenging questions to see how his mind works? And what would she have done if they had? Pipe up? Cut the interview short and whisk him out of the room? How would that have appeared?
I must say that I've been in the same position several times*, and it's not a stress-free wait. It's definitely nerve-wracking to sit in a waiting room while your candidate gets grilled behind closed doors. However, I managed to pass the time sitting like an adult, reading or working, rather than snooping around like a paranoid maniac.
I don't know what is most disturbing, Sellers' lack of professionalism and poise or Jindal's belief that she is the right person to be his press secretary.
Melissa Sellers isn't a total "amateur" either. Surely she learned to be poised under pressure when she managed Miss Latina USA, or when she was an intern for Bush/Cheney 2000, or John Cornyn for Senate. Surely she learned a thing or two about endorsement interview protocol when she managed Kris Gillespie's campaign for a Texas House seat. [Kris Gillespie is a fundagelical homophobic Republican woman who lost the campaign that Sellers managed, but then went on ABC's "Wife Swap" show and lived ten days with a lesbian household. Displaying a sublime version of "Christian" bigotry, Gillespie told the lesbian couple that they were depraved, and that she was worried that they were going to molest their daughter.]
Surely a political operative would learn such things over the course of time, unless they worked in a scripted political universe (read: Bushworld) that rewarded blind loyalty over competence.
Oh.
Worse yet, Ricky at Timshel is smitten over Sellers. He describes her as "Smart, attractive and well paid". I don't know. One and a half out of three isn't so bad, is it?
Two months ago, the LSU Reveille called on Jindal to fire Melissa Sellers if she didn't start returning phone messages. It won't be the last such plea, especially since Sellers has become "Public Enemy No. 1 to many reporters at media outlets big and small".
You're not a conservative Texas Bushie in 2002, Melissa. That apex of political power is gone. You'll need to adapt, and control your emotions and confront political risks like a professional. Sustained hubris always blows up, and people fall back to earth-- even Texans. The Ancient Greeks understood that, and some of them were gay.
And Ricky, my blog brother, please take a pass on this one. I know you like Sellers, but you should consider her a no fly zone. You don't want that much drama, I promise you.
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* For example, during May of 2005, I broke several traffic laws getting a State Senate candidate across town to the endorsement interview at the Times Picayune. There, she discussed her plans to improve passenger rail transportation for emergency evacuations, play hardball with Saints owner Tom Benson, and raise the minimum wage in New Orleans. The T-P was very skeptical of the minimum wage idea, and stumped her when they asked her to name another Southern state that had raised the minimum wage above the federal limit. (None had.) Then they asked her the ultimate trick question: which Louisiana politician do you most admire?
So, my candidate didn't receive the T-P endorsement. Instead the paper endorsed Derrick Shepherd, who, years later, they're able to "see through".
Labels: Bush, Elections and Campaigns, gays, Jindal, Melissa Sellers, Tejas
