reprinted from The Citadel Magazine
spring 2001
by Jennifer Wallace

The West Wing

          The late Bland Mathis, ’58, professor of English who taught at The Citadel from 1961 to 1997, used to tell his students that the transition from the Corps of Cadets to the real world was like the mythological Sisyphus who was doomed to spend eternity pushing a gigantic boulder up a hill only to have the rock roll back down the hill and to have to start pushing all over again.

          In Washington, D.C., Taylor Gross,’96, is climbing the hill and finding out just how heavy that rock really is.

          At 8:00 p.m. 17^th Street is deserted and a little eerie, and the street lamps do little to illuminate the dark, misty night that’s descended over Washington on this ides of March. Taylor Gross is talking to someone as he waits by the southwest security gate at the White House. He is tall and slim in his suit; his dark hair is neatly cut, and I recognize him immediately from his senior class picture.

          In the picture he wears an impish half-grin, but now as a member of the president’s team, he is in his professional façade with the polite and engaging manner you always expect from a cadet. At 26, his cadet years aren’t that far away. A native of Johnson City, Tenn., Taylor graduated from The Citadel with a political science degree in 1996. He had toyed with the idea of going to law school, but when he got a chance to work on Senator Bob Dole’s campaign, he jumped at it—he’s been on the move ever since.

          After the Dole campaign, he went to work for Senator Fred Thompson, and later when he heard that Lt. Col. Oliver North needed an associate producer for his radio show, he convinced the executive director to give him a chance. Soon afterward, he not only had a job in radio, but in producing a television show called Equal Time that aired on MSNBC.

          Senator John Ashcroft, who was a frequent guest on the Oliver North television show, gave him his next job. As deputy communications director, Taylor wrote news releases and prepared the senator for TV and radio interviews. At the same time, he became director of radio for the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, managing as many as 500 radio outlet shows. Then in August 2000, he became Governor George W. Bush’s media coordinator for the South in charge of eleven states. When it looked like Bush had won the state of Florida on November 7, Taylor says he bragged that Bush had gone 11 for 11, winning all of Taylor’s states. Little did he know then that his campaign job was far from over. With the disputed Florida votes, he found himself between Tallahassee and Miami, assisting with the recount hullabaloo and setting up press conferences for former White House Chief of Staff Jim Baker. Unprepared for his extended stay, he had to buy more clothes in Florida and spend Thanksgiving sans turkey at a Tallahassee French restaurant.

          If the Florida ordeal wasn’t enough, he found himself in the midst of a brouhaha with the cabinet confirmation of John Ashcroft for attorney general. Because he had worked for Ashcroft, Taylor was asked to be the press liaison for Ashcroft’s transition team.

          "I had no idea what was in store for me," he recounts. "Almost 90% of the media focus was on the Ashcroft nomination. I remember thinking to myself this is getting out of hand. Not only had Florida been one of my states as a regional press coordinator during the campaign, but I had just gotten off of a 34 grueling days in Tallahassee and was now dealing with a media frenzy over Ashcroft’s nomination."

          These days Taylor is the president’s director of radio media and he’s steeped in the cutthroat lifestyle of politics in Washington. He is the White House liaison for all radio stations, radio networks, radio reporters, and talk shows. Taylor produces the weekly presidential radio address, organizes all White House staff radio interviews, and works with the office of political affairs to strategically place the president’s message via the radio in the states and congressional districts that are crucial to legislative proposals.

          "It’s like knob year all over again," he jokes as he shows me around the West Wing.

          The ceilings on the ground floor are surprisingly low, and walking through the corridor is like walking through a presidential photo album—pictures of the president are scattered along the walls everywhere. The photographs, Taylor explains, are traded out weekly as the White House photographer takes more pictures.

          Mess in the West Wing is a far cry from Coward Hall. It’s smaller and round tables with white linens are crowded into the sedate room with its navy carpeted floor. Taylor says they serve a mean cheeseburger.

          Upstairs the ceilings are appropriately lofty. A group of people passes us, doing the same thing we are—peeking in the rooms where, by day, some of the world’s most important decisions are being made. A typical day for Taylor begins at 5:30 a.m. and ends far into the evening hours. Saturday is his morning to relax; he doesn’t go in to work until 10:00 a.m. The burnout rate in Washington, he tells me, is very high.

          A fat bouquet of pale pink roses sits on the desk in the reception room and on the opposite wall hangs the famous oil painting of Washington crossing the Delaware. Taylor tells me what the history books don’t—the painting is full of mistakes. "The sky is wrong. The morning star would not have been visible. Washington and his men would have been crossing the river in the dead of the night and he never would have been standing in a boat while crossing treacherous waters."

          We poke our heads into the cabinet room and see another picture of Washington, the only picture of Washington without his wig. We stand for a long time at the door to the Oval Office. I’m reminded of the Hall of Mirrors at the Chateau de Versailles. The massive windows are sheathed in gold draperies and the big walnut desk that little John Kennedy played in sits in the center of the room. Behind it is Old Glory. I feel very solemn and patriotic, but then my eyes wander to a closed door, and I ask the question that everyone else does these days, "Is that where the Monica-thing took place?"

          After a trip to the press room, which is actually a former swimming pool, and nowhere near as large as it appears on television, we walk across to Taylor’s office in the old executive office building. It’s small and shabby after the Oval Office. There’s one small window, a desk, a loveseat, and a chair. Taylor turns the volume off of a news program playing on the television that sits on top of a filing cabinet.

          As a cadet, Taylor remembers walking his share of tours, and as if to explain his post-Citadel success, he quotes Col. Harvey M. Dick, ’53, assistant commandant of cadets when Taylor was a senior, who said, "Our worst cadet is a thousand times better than the top graduate at any other school."

          Perhaps that’s the reason he thrives in Washington in the controversial realm of politics, working for a president whose mission is his own. It’s the center of his world these days.

          Is there a future for Taylor Gross as a politician? "I’d run for office if I thought I could make a difference," he says.

          For now, though, it’s time to call it a night. He leaves the West Wing with Scott Stanzel, Midwest region spokesman. For the second time in his life, Taylor is assigned to sophomore lot. This time, though, it’s the White House sophomore lot, and from there he and Scott are going to watch the Iowa State basketball game before getting up to start another day and another climb all over again.