CNN
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Alice Stewart, a veteran political adviser and CNN political commentator who labored on a number of GOP presidential campaigns, has died. She was 58.
Regulation enforcement officers instructed CNN that Stewart’s physique was discovered open air within the Belle View neighborhood in northern Virginia early Saturday morning. No foul play is suspected, and officers imagine a medical emergency occurred.
“Alice was a really pricey buddy and colleague to all of us at CNN,” Mark Thompson, the community’s CEO, stated in an e mail to employees Saturday. “A political veteran and an Emmy Award-winning journalist who introduced an incomparable spark to CNN’s protection, identified throughout our bureaus not just for her political savvy, however for her unwavering kindness. Our hearts are heavy as we mourn such a rare loss.”
Stewart was born on March 11, 1966, in Atlanta.
Stewart began her profession as a neighborhood reporter and producer in Georgia earlier than transferring to Little Rock, Arkansas, to be a information anchor, she instructed Harvard Worldwide Assessment. She went on to function the communications director in then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s workplace earlier than assuming the same position for his presidential run in 2008.
She additionally served because the communications director for the 2012 Republican presidential bids of former Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann after which former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, additionally a former CNN commentator. Most just lately, Stewart was the communications director for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 GOP presidential marketing campaign.
“Alice was great and proficient and an expensive buddy,” Cruz stated in a put up on X. “She lived day by day to the fullest, and he or she will likely be deeply missed.”
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‘I am actually heartbroken’: Jim Acosta will get emotional remembering Alice Stewart
CNN employed Stewart as a political commentator forward of the 2016 election, and he or she appeared on air continuously to supply perception on the political information of the day, together with as just lately as Friday on “The State of affairs Room with Wolf Blitzer.”
“We at all times invited her to come back on my present as a result of we knew we’d be somewhat bit smarter on the finish of that dialog,” Blitzer instructed Jessica Dean on “CNN Newsroom.” “She helped our viewers higher respect what was happening and that’s why we are going to miss her a lot.”
CNN anchor and chief political correspondent Dana Bash, who knew Stewart for practically twenty years after first assembly her when Stewart labored for the Huckabee marketing campaign, remembered her Saturday as “someone who instructed it straight.”
“One of many many the explanation why she was so priceless to us on our political panels … is as a result of she introduced that have,” Bash added. “She introduced that understanding of how Republican politics, Republican campaigns work and he or she by no means, ever did it with something aside from a smile.”
Talking about her position as a commentator for the community, Stewart instructed Harvard Political Assessment in 2020 that she brings “a perspective that I feel CNN appreciates.”
“My place at CNN is to be a conservative voice but an unbiased thinker,” Stewart stated. “I’m not a Kool-Support drinker; I’m not a never-Trumper, and I didn’t verify my widespread sense and decency on the door after I voted for (Trump).”
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Saturday remembered Stewart as “somebody that believes that politics was about making pals and never creating enemies.”
He shared with CNN that Stewart “was one of many first ones to name me and encourage me” after he suspended his presidential marketing campaign earlier this yr, and that they spoke simply final week “in regards to the mess that we see in our politics at the moment.”
“She was making an attempt to vary that and we’ll miss her,” Hutchinson added.
Stewart was a co-host of the podcast “Sizzling Mics From Left to Proper,” alongside fellow CNN commentator Maria Cardona.
“I simply can’t imagine that she’s gone,” Cardona stated on “CNN Newsroom,” including that the 2 had been going to document an episode of their podcast Saturday. “I need everybody to know what a particular particular person she was, particularly on this trade. As you already know, at the moment’s politics may be indecent and so soiled, and Alice was simply such a loving, shining mild.”
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Hear Maria Cardona’s emotional tribute to her ‘sister’ Alice Stewart