Get To Know A McCain Spokesman

I was reading an article today about the campaign where Joe Biden calls McCain a sidekick, not a maverick. A good line, I thought - and an accurate portrayal too, given the record. Ben Porritt of the McCain camp is quoted in the article as saying that neither Biden nor Obama have challenged their own party - as, it's implied, McCain has.

It got me thinking, "Who are you Ben Porritt?"

Turns out Ben Porritt is a guy that JUST got out of business school like a few months ago. He lives in LA and appears to work in LA and DC. 

Ben graduated undergrad from Bradley University a mere six years ago. Since then he's been holding down three jobs at one time AND going to business school at USC - according to his Linkedin page. Not only has he been working at the White House as "Executive Assisnace," *(apparently they don't teach spelling at Bradley or USC) for the past six years, he's been Press Secretary to the Majority Leader for the past three (for DeLay) and a Vice President, Partner and Senior Strategist at a PR firm called "Outside Eyes." Somewhere over the last six years since college he's also been a Bush/Cheney spokesman twice AT THE SAME TIME. It's true. See for yourself. I don't know how in the world he pulled that off. I've honestly never heard of anyone being able to do one job twice simultaneously. Maybe he has a twin...or two.

But there's more to Porritt than his veritable spectrum of careers in the White House. “I was raised to be a Republican,” he said in an interview with The Commercial News of Danville, Illinois. “I followed the 1988 election like an adult. I was only 7 years old."

That's when the letter writing began, “I wrote the first President Bush a letter and he answered it … Well, he probably didn’t answer it himself, but he acknowledged it,” Porritt said. “It made me feel as if the president knew who I was.” Now Porritt resides over the Vice Presidential detail of the McCain/Palin ticket's communications strategy. "It's like a dream come true," Porritt sorta said.   

I'll be sure to update this when Ben or his pals stumble on this little expose and he fixes his Linkedin profile.