By PERRY HOOPER, JR
Sarah Huckabee Sanders has been one of Trump’s most loyal supporters and confidants, almost constantly at his side during his two and a half years at the White House and during the campaign before. When asked about her departure from the White House Trump stated: “She’s done an incredible job, “She’s tough, she’s good. We’ve been through a lot together.”
There have been 31 previous White House staffers with the title Press Secretary, the first being George Akerson in 1929 in the Herbert Hoover Administration. Sanders is one of only three previous White House press secretaries that were female and the first one that had the additional responsibility of being a mother. She has two sons, William and George, and a daughter, Scarlett.
Sarah Sanders is a true daughter of the south; born in Hope, Arkansas, attended Little Rock Central High School while her father Mike Huckabee was Governor and graduated from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia Arkansas. There, she was elected Student Body President and was active in Republican organizations.
Sanders has worked for several political campaigns. In 2014 she was the adviser for Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and in 2011 she was the campaign manager for former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s presidential bid.
Sanders was the campaign manager of her father’s 2016 presidential campaign before joining Donald Trump’s communications team as a Senior Advisor. She joined the administration as deputy White House Press Secretary after the election. The 36-year-old Republican took over as White House press secretary in July 2017, after the resignation of Sean Spicer.
As Press Secretary she quickly gained a reputation as a fierce loyalist to the President. She was quick on her feet and could give a punch as well as well as she could take a punch, including her famous take down of CNN’s Jim Acosta and his fake news cohorts. She was also smart enough not to take herself too seriously. “No one elected me to anything,” she told the New York Times. “They elected the President.” At her first pre-Thanksgiving briefing, she requested that reporters preface their queries by saying what they were thankful for. Her supporters called it a brilliant move; the liberal media not so much “I learned a long time ago,” she said, “never to rule anything out.”
Despite her boss’s absence, she felt it her duty to appear at the 2018 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where so-called comedian Michelle Wolf proceeded to rebuke her as an “Uncle Tom” for “white women,” among other insults. Reporters swarmed Sanders at a party afterward to express sympathies. She really took one for the home team and showed the entire country how petty the liberal media really is.
Even though she is leaving Washington she will remain one of the President’s biggest supporters in her own words “I’m going to continue to be one of the most outspoken and loyal supporters of the president and his agenda and I know he’s going to have an incredible six more years and get a lot more done. It’s one of the greatest jobs I could ever have; I’ve loved every minute, even the hard minutes,”
To quote the President “After 3 1/2 years, our wonderful Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be leaving the White House at the end of the month and going home to the Great State of Arkansas,” Trump said, adding that he hoped she would run for governor of Arkansas in 2022.
Washington’s loss will be Arkansas’s gain. I sincerely hope she takes the President’s advice and runs for Governor of Arkansas in 2022. Sarah would be a great one.
Perry O Hooper, Jr. is a former State Representative from Montgomery who serves on the Alabama Republican Party Executive Committee. In 2016 he chaired Alabama’s Trump Victory campaign.