Ann Richards died of cancer in 2006. She chooses her words carefully and has maintained the grooming her grandmother instilled into her at an age when most children are still trying to navigate the politics of the sandbox.Jason Stanford was a press staffer to Richards and counts among his claims to fame as having “worked for all three generations because I once babysat Lily.”“At that point, you just have to channel what you know to get through it,” Adams told the “Party Animals” podcast.
Or granddaughter, for that matter.Eventually, she took the helm as president of Planned Parenthood, while Kirk Adams worked for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union.“I tease her that her public profile peaked at age 1 1/2,” Cecile Richards wrote in her memoir. She was in the national spotlight for the keynote address at the 1988 National Democratic Convention. Her speech in the middle of the presidential election was one of the most devastating takedowns in American political rhetoric and is widely considered to be one of the greatest convention speeches ever. For veterans of Capitol Hill, the highlight may well be that call with Richards’ granddaughter, which centers on a University of Texas women’s basketball game. “Cecile is a genius, too, but at organizing and building infrastructure. Lily Adams represented the family at a memorial service with a lineup of speakers that included a future boss, then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. And I have one nearly perfect granddaughter named Lily,” she said. He marched up to her makeshift float, got in her face and gave her the middle finger.Lily Adams was a crucial piece of Richards’ messaging. Some say she would have been White House press secretary in a second Clinton term.“One of the characteristics she has, like her grandmother, is she is not looking around the corner,” she added. “She is so proud to be of her mother and her grandmother and her father, but she never leads with it.
It was like a training ground. Hand fan from funeral showing Ann Richards' face : Return to the Table of Contents : The following material (in boxes 4La96-4La102) had been stored separately from the bulk of Ann Richards’ records. But this was part of our life with Mammy.”Cecile Richards said she took pleasure in watching her daughter and the young senator “learning the ropes in some ways together, and then transitioning to the presidential campaign was perfect.”“She doesn’t run away from it,” said Elleithee. That, I think, is sadly increasingly rare.”Richards was state treasurer at the time.