How I Defeated KellyAnne Conway

No "Alternative Facts" here.

It started on a quiet morning in 2007, in the leafy green suburb of Alpine, NJ. I was coming home from work in New York City when I noticed half a dozen cars parked in front of my house. I didn’t think much of it until the next day, when I noticed the same cars parked in the same place. When it happened yet again on the following day, I went looking for answers.

You may be tempted to say, “So what? Somebody parked in front of your house. Big deal”. But that’s because you don’t know Alpine, NJ.

Alpine was a quiet little town when I moved there in 1986. Home prices were high, but taxes were surprisingly low. Some rich folks lived in mansions in one section of town, but most of us Alpinians lived in normal-sized homes, sent our kids to the public elementary school, waved the flag at the annual Memorial Day parade, and picked up our mail at the local borough hall post office.

There is no home mail delivery in Alpine. Which sounds like an inconvenience, but it was a great way to catch up with our neighbors, or meet newcomers to our fair borough.

KellyAnne Conway was a newcomer to Alpine in 2007. She and her family purchased a brand new, 6-million dollar McMansion that was built directly across the street from my next door neighbor. The builders tore down a perfectly fine ranch-home to build their 10,000 square abode. And then they built iron gates around it.

Most Alpinians didn’t care for gated properties. Hell, most of us didn’t even fence in our backyards. We didn’t need to have ‘good fences’ to make ‘good neighbors’. After 20-years in my home, I knew most of my neighbors. I knew their kids. I even knew their dogs. And most of us got along just fine.

Somebody told me “that Republican pollster lady” had bought the old Brenner property, but I didn’t give it much thought at first. I had been covering politics for a long time, so I recognized her name immediately. But Alpinians balance their friendliness with respect for privacy, so I didn’t go banging on her front door to welcome her to the neighborhood. I figured we’d probably run into each other while picking up mail at the post office, and I would introduce myself there.

And then the cars showed up.

After a week of watching and wondering, I determined that the drivers of those cars were spending their days inside the McMansion of our new neighbors. So, one morning, as the cars filled up the curb space on both sides of the street in front of my house, I approached one of the drivers.

“Hi there,” I said with a smile. “Do you mind if I ask you a question? I’ve noticed that you have been parking here in front of my house every day, and so have all these other cars. Is there something special going on?”

The middle-aged lady answered politely, “No. We all work for Mrs. Conway.”

“Oh, I see. You work in Mrs. Conway’s house?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask why you don’t park in Mrs. Conway’s driveway?”

The woman told me there wasn’t enough room for all of those cars on the Conway’s property, which I found hard to believe because their McMansion has a long, curving driveway which seems capable of handling the most important parts of a Presidential motorcade.

“I see”, I replied. “But your cars are turning this into a one-lane road, That’s making it very difficult for me to safely make the turn out of my driveway. Plus, if there’s an emergency, I’m not sure the fire engines could make it through the cars parked on both sides. Would you mind spreading things out a bit and parking closer to the Conway’s?”

“I’ll handle it, sir. I will speak to Mrs. Conway”, she answered.

“Great. Thank you very much”, I said. We parted amicably and that was that. Or so I thought.

The next day, all of the cars were back again. So, I decided it was time for me to pay a neighborly visit to KellyAnne herself. I walked across the street and, finding the driveway gate was open, walked up the long-sweeping driveway to the Conway’s front door and rang the bell. KellyAnne did not answer the door, but her housekeeper did. It was the nice lady I had spoken to the day before.

“Hi there”, I said. “We spoke yesterday about all those cars parked at the bottom of my driveway. Did you get a chance to discuss it with Mrs. Conway?”

“Yes” she replied.

“OK. But the cars are still there. What did Mrs. Conway say?”

“Mrs. Conway told me she doesn’t want our cars parked in front of her house”.

I paused for a moment in semi-stunned silence and then asked, “Sorry, did you just say Mrs. Conway told you she doesn’t want her employees cars parked in front of her house?”

“Yes, sir.”

I felt the need to take a deep breath. Anybody who knows me knows I can have a short fuse when dealing with assholes. But it was clear to me that this nice woman who answered the doorbell was working for an asshole. So, I gave her a half-grin, thanked her for that information, and asked her to relay a message from me to the lady of the house.

“When Mrs. Conway looks out of the window, and sees cars parked in front of her home, please let her know they are mine.”

I smiled a bigger grin, turned and walked back to my house where I grabbed the keys to my car, drove it out of my driveway, and parked it directly in front of KellyAnne Conway’s house.

I then walked back to my house, grabbed the keys to my wife’s car, drove it out of my driveway, and parked it directly in front of KellyAnne Conway’s house.

Then, I walked back to my house for a third time, grabbed the keys to my son’s car, drove it out of my driveway, and parked that one, too, directly in front of KellyAnne Conway’s house.

I left those cars right there until darkness descended on the quiet streets of Alpine, New Jersey, at which time I drove them back up my driveway and parked them for the night.

The next day, it was immediately apparent that my vehicular protest had not had the intended effect. The fleet of Conway cars was once again parked in front of my home. So…you guessed it, I drove all 3 of my cars across the street and left them for the rest of the day right in front of KellyAnne’s house.

If memory serves me, we went through the same drill one more day. And then, almost magically, our geo-automotive crisis was over. I awakened to find all of the Conway employee cars were neatly parked in front of the Conway home. The bottom of my driveway was once again safe to navigate, and the street was clear enough to accommodate emergency vehicles, UPS and Fedex delivery trucks, kids on bicycles, moms going for a morning run, and dad’s talking their dogs for a walk.

I moved out of Alpine about 2-years later, selling my home to a builder who promptly leveled the place and built a McMansion that looks a lot like the Conway’s.

I never met KellyAnne before I left, and I have no idea if she even remembers our semi-great parking dispute of 2007. But, as I watched her morph over the years from a successful and respected New Jersey Republican political operative into a shill for Donald Trump, I realized what kind of person I had been dealing with. One of those self-important types who forgets their humble origins, and believes their success entitles them to try to steamroll anybody who gets in their way. In other words, a natural ally for the bloated bleached-blond bigot who is headed back to the White House.

My neighborhood dispute with Ms. Conway serves as a reminder that we have to stand up against the MAGA crowd in matters large and small. We must resist their efforts to abuse their power, to ignore our rights, and to intimidate us. Because that is the way Trump operates, and he is hell bent on building a new administration populated by political goon squads.

This is no time to shy away from the fight. History may not remember us for our efforts to save America’s democracy, but it will most certainly condemn us if we don’t try. And well it should.