Washington was shaken this week by the sudden and tragic death of the political commentator and veteran media adviser Alice Stewart. Stewart, only 58, had appeared on CNN’s The Situation Room as recently as last Friday. Her body was found the following day in the Belle View neighborhood in northern Virginia. Authorities do not yet know the cause of her death, but they have ruled out foul play.
Stewart was born on March 11, 1966, in Atlanta. An avid football fan and an especially devoted supporter of her Georgia Bulldogs, after graduating from the University of Georgia and working as a local TV reporter in Savannah, Stewart moved to Arkansas, where she worked as a reporter, anchor, and, later, a producer for Little Rock’s NBC affiliate, KARK-4. In the early 2000s, Stewart, while never completely leaving TV behind, began to transition from media to politics. She joined Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s staff as communications director. When Huckabee left office to run for president in 2007, Stewart was one of his presidential campaign’s first hires. Stewart’s shrewd strategizing and media savvy helped Huckabee win the Iowa caucuses and finish second in the delegate count to the eventual Republican nominee, John McCain. “The news of her death has been deeply sobering to me personally and to my family,” Huckabee stated this week.
