Thread by @lucymcaldwell

1/6 Elise Stefanik and I both attended Harvard (she was ahead of me, but many mutual friends). Didn’t know her well at all, but I always had a negative impression of her—my gut told me she was phony and untrustworthy. But people probably thought of us in same vein because we

2/6 were both conservatives (I was a rabble-rousing columnist for The Crimson, ruffled plenty of feathers). When Elise ran for Congress, I was working at the Goldwater Institute, highly engaged in conservative/GOP politics. Unsurprisingly, lots of mutual friends—including Dems—

3/6 started fundraising for Elise, and unsurprisingly, lots of them called to ask me for help because they assumed I, a conservative, would be happy to support her. I avoided/put them off, never gave her a dime, politely declined to be helpful. It was awkward, but I just had a

4/6 tremendously bad feeling about her. Then she won, our mutual friends were really excited (recall that back then she was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress), and I pretty much forgot the whole thing. When I did think about it, I felt bad for maybe being too harsh.

5/6 So Elise began her congressional ...well, shall we call it a journey? Things seemed okay—she was the nakedly ambitious narcissist I suspected, but she was saying the right things. But soon the attention for Elise dried up. That’s when Elise really began showing us who she is.

6/6 Elise Stefanik has turned out to be exactly who I thought she was all those years ago—actually, worse. @RadioFreeTom invoked “Tracy Flick” this AM, but I’d argue Tracy Flick is less craven.

Moral of the story: Trust your gut. If someone seems like a monster, she probably is.