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Michelle Kwan Is Working for Hillary Clinton
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/08/michelle-kwan-is-working-for-hillary-clinton.htmlIn a modestly air-conditioned office space in a suburban strip mall in Arlington, Virginia, the Hillary volunteers are phone-banking. They are gathering around card tables and crammed into sofas and loveseats, beneath handmade signs and patriotic bunting, mostly retirees and college students, talking on cell phones and filling out paperwork, pinching the microphones of their headphones between thumb and forefinger and clasping their hands over their ears.
At the center of the scene is Michelle Kwan, 36, the legendary Olympic figure-skating medalist. Her hair is shorn in a long summer bob, and she’s wearing a black dress with a tulip skirt paired with black ankle-strap heels. A small group of volunteers, breaking for a moment to meet their celebrity guest, cautiously hovers around her. “I am so nervous right now,” one woman says, stepping forward to ask for a picture. “My sisters are so jealous.” Kwan smiles and says, “Aww, where are they from?”
It’s a phenomenon that goes back to the first Clinton administration and was only reinforced during the Obama years: The Democratic party now relies on a constellation of stars among its key supporters and surrogates. The new center of this nexus of politics and celebrity in 2016 is Michelle Kwan, who has the unique role of being both celebrity surrogate and Clinton campaign staffer. Kwan’s official role with the campaign is “surrogate outreach coordinator,” which basically means it’s her job to wrangle Clinton’s high-profile backers, including stars like Katy Perry, Lena Dunham, and Meryl Streep, all of whom have made appearances this year on behalf of the candidate. It cannot hurt that Kwan is also one of them. As best I can tell, the Trump campaign has no equivalent. (When I emailed a Trump campaign spokesperson to ask whether the campaign had a surrogate outreach coordinator, she wrote back, “Thanks. We will pass on this,” as though I was offering myself up for the role, rather than asking a yes-or-no question.)
...
Kwan is also unique in the way she inspired a generation of American women and girls, and there’s a parallel set of emotions the Clinton campaign has tried to capture as Hillary appears poised to become the nation’s first female president. At least, that’s the sentiment on display among the Clinton supporters at the phone-banking event, where a young woman with curly blonde hair looks up from her call logs and asks Kwan, “When I was in the fifth grade, I watched your long programs on VHS tapes. Do you still skate on occasion?” And an older woman jumps in: “Do you have any children?”
At the center of the scene is Michelle Kwan, 36, the legendary Olympic figure-skating medalist. Her hair is shorn in a long summer bob, and she’s wearing a black dress with a tulip skirt paired with black ankle-strap heels. A small group of volunteers, breaking for a moment to meet their celebrity guest, cautiously hovers around her. “I am so nervous right now,” one woman says, stepping forward to ask for a picture. “My sisters are so jealous.” Kwan smiles and says, “Aww, where are they from?”
It’s a phenomenon that goes back to the first Clinton administration and was only reinforced during the Obama years: The Democratic party now relies on a constellation of stars among its key supporters and surrogates. The new center of this nexus of politics and celebrity in 2016 is Michelle Kwan, who has the unique role of being both celebrity surrogate and Clinton campaign staffer. Kwan’s official role with the campaign is “surrogate outreach coordinator,” which basically means it’s her job to wrangle Clinton’s high-profile backers, including stars like Katy Perry, Lena Dunham, and Meryl Streep, all of whom have made appearances this year on behalf of the candidate. It cannot hurt that Kwan is also one of them. As best I can tell, the Trump campaign has no equivalent. (When I emailed a Trump campaign spokesperson to ask whether the campaign had a surrogate outreach coordinator, she wrote back, “Thanks. We will pass on this,” as though I was offering myself up for the role, rather than asking a yes-or-no question.)
...
Kwan is also unique in the way she inspired a generation of American women and girls, and there’s a parallel set of emotions the Clinton campaign has tried to capture as Hillary appears poised to become the nation’s first female president. At least, that’s the sentiment on display among the Clinton supporters at the phone-banking event, where a young woman with curly blonde hair looks up from her call logs and asks Kwan, “When I was in the fifth grade, I watched your long programs on VHS tapes. Do you still skate on occasion?” And an older woman jumps in: “Do you have any children?”
5 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
...my favorite figure skater ever! 
PEACE! 
