'Show Up, Lean In, Work Hard and Make a Difference'
Anne Hathaway, president and CEO of Hathaway Strategies and Indiana's Republican National Committee Woman, delivered the keynote at the Annual Lincoln Day Dinner at Park Place in Macomb, drawing on three decades of political experience—from stuffing yard signs in a barn to advising a vice president in the White House.
But her core message remained unchanged: grassroots politics still matters.
'Nothing replaces elbow grease,' Hathaway said during an interview with the Community News Brief and Tri-States Public Radio prior to the event. 'Getting to know the candidates, getting to know the voters. Going door to door, phone calls still matter. That's where the margin in elections lies.'
Hathaway grew up in Galva, a small town in the Kewanee-Geneseo area. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in interior design. Though unrelated to her career, she credits the design background with teaching her the creative problem-solving that shapes her political strategy.
Her entry into politics came by chance. At a luncheon, she sat next to then-State Senator Ken McMillan and asked to work on his campaign. When he said he had no positions available, she persisted. When McMillan ran for Congress, Hathaway got her opportunity.
'My first official job was as yard sign coordinator,' she recalled. 'I was in a big barn outside of Bushnell, putting together yard signs.'
That humble beginning taught her something she still carries. 'I learned grassroots politics at the local level,' she said. 'Door-to-door, phone banking, parades, yard signs—all of those things that go into persuading people to vote.'
From there, her career accelerated. She moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked in the Treasury Department before joining the 1988 presidential campaign. After George H.W. Bush won, Hathaway became assistant to Vice President Dan Quayle and director of scheduling and public liaison—a role that required precision and strategy.
'My team's responsibility was to put together the dayto- day schedule for the vice president,' she explained. 'We worked hard to make sure he got home every night so he'd be there either for dinner or breakfast,' with his school-aged children.
When the Bush-Quayle administration ended, Quayle asked Hathaway to move with him to Indianapolis to manage his political action committee and media work. The move kept her close to home — three and a half hours from Galva — and her aging parents.
'I'm a small town girl,' she said. 'That was really, really important to me.'
In Indianapolis, Hathaway built her consulting firm and became executive director of the Richard G. Lugar Excellence in Public Service Series, a training program for women entering public service. Two of her alumni have reached the state and national level: one served as lieutenant governor; another is currently a member of Congress.
During the interview, Hathaway addressed the current political climate — one she described as 'frustrating.'
'People are really being mean,' she said. 'Campaigns are mean. A lot of insults are being thrown. We're in that part of the cycle where we're hurling insults more than sitting down and having discussions on how to solve real problems.'
She blamed both parties. 'I think absolutely, it's the fault of both sides,' Hathaway said. 'We have hard right, hard left, and much of the frustration is with the people in the middle, who want people to quit hurling insults and sit down and have a conversation and get things fixed.'
She pointed to Indiana's fractured Republican coalition as an example. 'We will have good friends, people who are used to working shoulder-to-shoulder, side-by-side, who are right now at odds with each other,' she said. 'The team is fractured.'
Politics, she insisted, 'is supposed to be the art of compromise,' yet compromise has become a dirty word to some.
When asked what advice she'd give a high schooler interested in politics despite the current climate, Hathaway returned to her core message: 'Get involved. The only way to make a difference and make change is to show up, lean in, and work hard.'
She cautioned against chasing titles or relying solely on digital tactics and paid media. 'Nothing replaces hand-tohand combat in real life,' she said. 'Get to know the candidates, get to know the voters. Learn all there is to know about campaigns and candidates, and work your way up.'
Face-to-face engagement remains essential, she emphasized — especially in an era of artificial intelligence and deepfakes. 'If you want to truly educate or influence someone, you have to have real life conversations,' Hathaway said. 'Not only listen, but hear. And then act upon what you hear as opposed to what you want to hear.'
The rise of AI in campaigns concerns her. She recently discovered an AI-generated painting of herself online without her knowledge — a warning sign for candidates trying to manage their messaging.
'You're put in a position where first you're defending yourself from what your opponent is saying, but now you're against this shadow, this bully, where did it come from? How do you discredit it?' she said. 'We're all learning. This is all very new.'
Still, Hathaway remains optimistic about the next generation of political engagement — as long as they remember where real power lies.
'There are a lot of new tactics, a lot of TV money, radio money, digital money spent in campaigns,' she said. 'But nothing replaces elbow grease.'
The event, organized by the McDonough County Central Committee on Saturday, April 11, also featured remarks from an Abraham Lincoln impersonator and local speakers Randy Duncan and Jerry Tyson. An interview with Tyson will be published in an upcoming edition of the Community News Brief.
