Mr. DeCleene goes to Washington

On a normal day -- that is, when nothing too big is in the news -- Randy DeCleene walks into his office around 7 a.m. When he looks out the window behind his desk, he sees the White House. \n"It's a constant reminder of where I am," he said.\nHis office television is on the background, with the screen split into fourths, each quarter-screen playing one of the major cable news networks. \nHe's amused by it.\n"It's a wonderful invention if you're a news junkie," he added.\nHe recently finished The Clinton Wars, a senior aide's inside account of the Clinton presidency, and declares, "I find I gain more about myself when I read someone I don't necessarily agree with."\nReading is a large part of his job. The majority of his morning is spent reading, he said, typically six or seven newspapers a day and the press clips of his boss, the vice president of the United States. \nDeCleene, an IU alumnus who graduated in 2000, currently serves as the Deputy Press Secretary for Vice President Dick Cheney after many years of bouncing back and forth between participating in school and participating in politics.\n"It's slightly deceiving," he said coyly, referring to his graduation date. "Because I stopped attending in August 1997 with only five credits left."\nDeCleene left IU temporarily then to work on the campaign of Sue Anne Gilroy, a former Indiana secretary of state, who said she still clearly remembers the first day she met him.\n"Randy made the trip up to the state GOP convention from IU, and he said, 'I'll do whatever it takes, I want to be part of this campaign,'" Gilroy said.\nDeCleene said he believes he did just enough school work to get by, but at the time he wasn't interested in classes. \n"School was something I had to do in order to work on these campaigns," he said. "The best education I could get was working on campaigns."\nHe was an early journalism major who ended up waitlisted for his first required class, but changed his major to political science shortly after arriving at IU. Then he changed again to social and behavioral sciences after learning the political science requirements. \n"I told my adviser, 'I need to know what I can major in where I don't have to take a foreign language,'" he laughed.\nPolitics, though, have always been his passion. He was raised in a house where the television was always on and people were always discussing the issues of the day. He characterized his perfect day as a cup of coffee, a comfortable place to sit and a collection of newspapers from around the country. \nDeCleene flirted with campus politics as an undergraduate, running for IU Student Association vice president and then losing. He served as the president of the IU College Democrats before switching parties in 1994.\n"I grew up in South Bend, which is a very Democratic area," he said. "Back then, my dad was an elected Democrat, and everyone I knew was a Democrat. I just thought I was a Democrat."\nAfterward he joined with the College Republicans and became involved with Monroe County politics.\n"He's one of those alums that the University will be particularly proud of," said Kirk White, whose 1995 Bloomington mayoral campaign DeCleene worked for $200 a week.\nWhite said he and DeCleene have become good friends and still see each other, but when DeCleene first came to volunteer for the campaign after his party switch, White described it as a gamble.\n"You always wonder one way or another if someone from the other side plants someone in your campaign," White remembered. "So we took a little bit of a gamble, but Randy is a very sincere person and someone that I trusted."\nTrusted is one of the terms which those who have worked with DeCleene seem to keep repeating -- as well as "a valuable asset," "a great contributor" and "a pleasure to work with." \n"He's a consummate public servant, the kind of guy who puts principles first," said Chris Toth, the former prosecutor for Saint Joseph County in Indiana and current the deputy director of the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington, D.C.\n"I wish I could clone him," Toth added with a chuckle.\nDeCleene worked as Toth's press secretary from 2000 to 2003 where he got his first taste of dealing with the national media.\n"A fascinating job," DeCleene said. "And I had it in conjunction with going to law school, which made it even better."\nDuring his his tenure, he had to manage the national press gaggle on two major stories. There was the case of four Notre Dame football players who were charged with gang rape, and then the case of Madelyne Toogood, who was caught on a department store security camera beating her daughter. \n"It was unlike anything I'd done before," DeCleene said. "You wouldn't normally expect to deal with those things working in a county prosecutor's office in Indiana. It was good training for where I've ended up now."\nAfter briefly working earlier this year in Chicago as press secretary and strategist on a campaign for an open Senate seat in Illinois, he went to work at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C. as deputy press secretary to the vice president.\nEach day is different and unpredictable, he said, because so much of what the office staff does is in response to world events.\nHis job requires him to work with press secretary Kevin Kellems, who he worked with on Gilroy's campaign. DeCleene primarily handles interview requests, speaks on behalf of the vice president and coordinates the traveling press, sometimes tagging along.\n"If I live to be 100, I'll never forget the first time I flew on Air Force Two," he said reflectively. "Flying on a plane with the second most powerful man in the world makes me think of the people who helped me along the way."\nIt is then DeCleene begins to speak as favorably about his former bosses as they do about their former employee. \n"If it wasn't for White, if it wasn't for Gilroy, if it wasn't for people like that giving me a chance as a 22- or 23-year-old, none of this would have been possible," he said as he stood up from his desk chair looking out of that office window again, the one with the particular view of the White House.\nIn typical DeCleene fashion, he has yet to complete law school, which he began at Valparaiso University, "all done except for one semester," he commented playfully.\n"But I don't want to demean my school experience," he quickly added. "I just wasn't interested in it at the time, but now I read books and I wonder, wouldn't it be great if I only had 15 hours of school and a few extracirricular activities?"\n"That's not to say one way of attending school is right or wrong, but certainly I don't think I took the easy way," he laughed.\nHe said he definitely plans to finish law school one way or another, either after he's done working in Washington, D.C. or after November election results are counted -- whichever comes first. When possible future campaigns of his own are mentioned, he responds with a playful, "You never know." \n"I can honestly say that my life has been very unpredictable," he said. "I would not be surprised if public service and working to make Indiana a better place is somehow involved with my future."\n"He'll never forget his Hoosier roots," Gilroy said, almost prophetically.\nBut until then, Decleene said he doesn't want to take anything for granted.\n"I have a picture on my desk from 1972 of my great-grandfather standing in the circle drive of the White House. Through my office window, I can see exactly where he was standing," DeCleene said proudly. \n"It's humbling to know he came over on a boat, passed through Ellis Island, passed the Statue of Liberty, lived a normal life as a barber and now I get the chance to work at the White House. The significance of his great-grandson getting that opportunity is not lost on me."\n-- Contact opinion editor Tony Sams at ajsams@indiana.edu.