Here is Katy Abram explaining to Fox News’s Sean Hannity last night how she was transformed from an unthinking Bill Clinton voter (who “believed in abortion… and all of that”) to someone who doesn’t “want this country turning into Russia, turning into a Socialized country,” as Abram loudly announced during a health care town hall in Lebanon, Pa. yesterday, her ticket to more than one appearance since then on Fox News. (Hint: a gig in local journalism — and the crappy paycheck that came with it — helped jolt her out of her stupor.)
SEAN HANNITY: I don’t know if you are going to be upset that I said this publicly but you were a Democrat. You voted for Bill Clinton. Now you say you don’t “want this country turning into Russia, turning into a Socialized country.” How did you change your political philosophy? What changed you?
KATY ABRAM: You’ll get a kick out of this. I went to school to work in the media. And in college, you know, I believed in abortion, I believed in all of that. I hadn’t really thought about the things too much. I just kind of went on my merry way and I didn’t have to pay taxes and no big deal and yeah, I voted for Clinton. I regret that now. I voted, I think, twice for him.
And then I got a job in the media and I was a photojournalist at the local level. I loved that job. But when I got my first paycheck I was dumbfounded. I mean, you know* in the media you don’t make much money, especially in the beginning. To me it seemed like they took a really huge chunk out of my paycheck. I decided to switch to the Republican party… I don’t know, I just, over the past couple months, you know, I educated myself. I have learned about the Founders. I refuse to be fed any of this rhetoric that you hear on a lot of the major news media. I’m tired of it.
Health care was in there somewhere, right?
*(He knows.)
UPDATE: Abram is about to appear on MSNBC’s Hardball. (Will she cop to her past involvement in the media?)
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.