MEDIA
Check out Some Recent Media Appearances
KOGO-Special Council Mueller, Comey, & Trump. "Get off of Twitter, stop defending, and start leading," says Leslie.
WRUV-Republican Healthcare Plan.
"We need a healthcare plan that is consumer-driven, increases access, improves quality, and restrain costs."
"We need a healthcare plan that is consumer-driven, increases access, improves quality, and restrain costs."
WILS-Discussing Russia, White House press briefings, and healthcare. Leslie says, "bring back the daily press briefings, turn the cameras on, and use that as an opportunity to drive the news story."
WSJK-Discussing leaks in the Trump administration and General Kelly. Host says, to Leslie, "Your credibility rose with me when you blasted Scaramucci. I didn't even know the guy and seven days later he's gone. Leslie Sorrell hit it on the head."
Above is a LINK
to an article published on August 27, 2017 article by Tonya S. Grace, writer for the Kentucky New Era Newspaper
Discussing Alabama Senate Candidate, Roy Moore, and sexual misconduct
Click the link
above to listen to the Interview about the NFL taking a knee. Leslie's Interview starts at the 8 minute mark.
What Others Are Saying
"Like Leslie's Grandma, I took great pride in modeling to citizens that there still could be honorable, dedicated public servants. Prioritizing service to the public and the nation doesn't exist in the narcissistic 'system' that Leslie's book so accurately describes."
-- David Childs, Ph.D., Dallas County Tax Collector (1989-2008), author Fit for Service
"Hard-hitting, brash, and surprisingly funny. Sorrell pulls back the curtain and exposes the Washington power-hungry fat cats and their self-serving ways. She gives voters a fighting chance in taking our country back."
-- Grant Stinchfield, conservative T.V./radio host
"Sorrell was able to gain a perspective that most American never do."
-- Jacob Thomas, staff writer Kentucky New Era
Awards
Writers League of Texas Manuscript Contest Award
Writers League of Texas
2015
Writers League of Texas, with a membership of over 1200, has an annual manuscript contest. From Clients to Crooks - An Insider Reveals The Real Washington D.C.
was chosen for the memoir category.
Q & A with Author, Leslie Sorrell
What did you hope to accomplish in writing From Clients to Crooks?
Writing allowed me to cope with the painful loss of being tasked to put Grant Stinchfield in Congress, and losing. When that campaign ended, everything I believed in vanished. I knew I would not allow myself to continue doing what I had been doing, but I couldn’t figure out how to leave my political life. I loved it, but I was now heartbroken.I wrote to heal myself. When I was done, I falsely believed I was on the path forward. But the story wanted out. It tracked me down and refused to go away, creating restless nights. So, I went back to make sense of it all. I needed to explain it to myself and to Grant. During that process, I came to believe if someone else heard my story I would be doing my part to make the political system better.
Politics is such a visceral environment. How did you do what you did every day?
I grew up in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where the booming sounds of Ft. Campbell Army base can be heard from our backyards. I couldn’t believe there were so many people willing to die for our country and I was in awe of them. I didn’t have it in me to die for our country, but I did want to figure out a way to do good.I thought politics represented the best of ideals of our society. I thought I was doing honorable work. I created and lived in a world where I fervently believed getting “good” people in office was my unique way of serving the country. When I started my political consulting firm, I even referred to our team as “special forces,” after the military’s elite and nimble members. We were a band of true-believers.
How do you want readers to view these elected officials, many whom are Congressmen?
I hope the reader is as heartbroken as I am. I want people to see that there is no longer an incentive to do the right thing. I didn’t even realize that the system rewards corruption. I should have known it was only a matter of time before my clients--elected officials--fell victim to it.
Articles
Christian County native’s manuscript wins first place in Texas contest
Posted: Saturday, May 16, 2015 6:11 pm | Updated: 6:15 pm, Sat May 16, 2015.
By Jacob Thomas, New Era Staff Writer | 0 Comments
For more than 30 years, the Writer’s League of Texas has provided a forum for writers to connect, support and share with one another. This year the league selected Christian County native Leslie Sorrell for first place in its 2015 Manuscript Contest.
Sorrell is a Fox Radio News contributer and founder of a political consulting firm who wrote her book, “From Clients to Crooks — An Insider Reveals the Real Washington, D.C.” to offer readers a peek behind the world of power-brokers and their culture as she saw and experienced it.
For most people, such an opportunity might not come around so often. Sorrell’s entrance into politics began when she was just 5 years old as a volunteer on her grandmother’s campaign for county tax assessor in Edmonton. Professionally, Sorrell’s career in politics began with an internship on Capitol Hill with Congressman Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., and continued beyond the beltway, in Texas, where she became involved in the redistricting process and a whole host of new, energetic people running for Congress.
At age 28, she started a political consulting firm in Texas, The Magnolia Group, which Sorrell said was intended to be a sort of “special forces team” for political campaigns and causes staffed by people who believed in the underdog, and making the impossible, possible. Sorrell says she was young, naïve and idealistic in “believing that politics represented the greatest ideals of our society” and thinking that she could be of service to her country by helping put good people in office, and keeping them there.
The Magnolia Group has worked with politicians of all stripes including judges, senators, governors, and even those vying for the White House. Through these experiences, Sorrell was able to gain a perspective that most Americans never do, one that inspired her to write her book. “I was a true-believer who lost faith in those tasked with serving our country—my clients”, says Sorrell. Over the years she watched them transform from awkward candidates she believed into slick politicians. “I had envisioned them becoming great statesmen. Instead as time passed, my clients moved closer and closer to the line between right and wrong, until working on the edge became routine and the line itself began to fade.”
However, without her experience working so closely with various politicians she might not have gained the understanding that she now claims to have. “It was my success in growing the Magnolia Group from a start-up to a successful and influential national political consulting firm that transformed my understanding of the real world of politics”, said Sorrell. “I’d been in that world for years, making one little compromise after another before I realized that I was in a world that no one tells you about and that the media fails to cover. It’s a world none of us want to believe in – me least of all.”
And that, she says was the purpose of the book, to shed light on what actually occurs in D.C., making people aware of how the political system often incentivizes corruption. According to Sorrell, “serving the country hardly exists—instead it’s about self-service, secrecy over transparency, and their paycheck above ours.”
After almost two decades and an exciting, challenging career, Sorrell decided to walk away from the political arena. She occasionally gives political commentary on Fox News but, these days Sorrell and her husband spend most of their time in Belize, away from the dirt and grime of the campaign trail.
Reach Jacob Thomas at 270-887-3240 or jthomas@kentuckynewera.com.
