Independent Voter Podcast
Anne Dunsmore has been in the room for nearly 50 years of American politics, and it all started because she lost a bet in a D.C. bar.
She sits down with Chad Peace and Cara McCormick to tell her story: working the floor with James Baker and Margaret Tutwiler on George H.W. Bush's 1980 campaign, turning around Pete Wilson's reelection from what she calls an "Exxon Valdez" moment, and raising $1.2 billion alongside Michael Ovitz to rebuild UCLA after the Northridge earthquake. Along the way she talks fundraising for Muhammad Ali, being one of the only women in rooms full of "cavemen," and why she never needed to be an ideologue to be effective. By the end, Chad and Cara land on the idea that independent thinkers aren't just riding the tide of American politics, they're the disruption itself.
This episode is sponsored by the Independent Voter Project and produced by Olas Media. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
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Episode Highlights
On this episode of the Independent Voter Podcast, hosts Chad Peace and Cara McCormick sit down with veteran GOP operative Anne Dunsmore, who traces her nearly 50-year career back to losing a bet in a Washington, D.C. bar in the late 1970s that sent her onto George H.W. Bush's 1980 presidential campaign.
Dunsmore describes working her way up from the campaign floor to the inner circle around James Baker, Margaret Tutwiler, and press secretary Pete Teeley, where she befriended Bush's sons Neil, Marvin, and Jeb while handling press in Oregon and Michigan.
She recounts building a career in fundraising after politics offered women mostly scheduling or fundraising roles, eventually working with Muhammad Ali and later joining Michael Ovitz to raise $1.2 billion to rebuild UCLA after the Northridge earthquake.
Dunsmore details being brought in to rescue Pete Wilson's reelection campaign from what she calls an 'Exxon Valdez' moment, engineering a 180-degree turnaround despite skepticism from an all-male team.
The conversation shifts to her advocacy work with Angel Force USA, where she raises awareness about the military suicide crisis, citing statistics that a single suicide affects 135 lives and describing the medication and contagion effects within military families.
Cara connects the discussion to the ongoing crisis aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford, referencing sailors reportedly attempting suicide during an extended deployment, and criticizes the disconnect between military leadership and service members' mental health needs.
Chad and Dunsmore close by reframing independent-minded people not as riding the political tide but as the disruption itself, with Dunsmore coining the phrase 'rogue wave' to describe voters and thinkers who refuse to drift with partisan currents.
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