8:17 a.m., Nov. 18, 2009----Ed Gillespie, former chairperson of the Republican National Committee, will present the final talk in the fall lecture series “Assessing Obama's First Year” at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 2, in Mitchell Hall on the University of Delaware campus in Newark.

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Gillespie will speak on the topic “The Future of the Republican Party,” and the talk is free and open to the public.

Gillespie is one of the country's top communications strategists with a long record of success in business, politics and government. He recently launched Ed Gillespie Strategies, a strategic consulting firm that provides high-level advice to companies and CEOs, coalitions, and trade associations.

Gillespie is also a founding board member of Resurgent Republic, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to informing the debate over the proper role of government. Through a steady stream of national polls and focus groups, Resurgent Republic helps policy makers, think tanks, interest groups and others advocate for policies that are consistent with conservative principles.

Gillespie was counselor to President George W. Bush in the last 18 months of the Bush Administration. During his service at the White House he helped handle a series of historic events that included the 2007 surge of U.S. troops in Iraq, the response to the financial markets collapse in the fall of 2008 and the peaceful transition of presidential power in 2009.

More than a year before taking the counselor title, Gillespie had led the successful Supreme Court confirmation efforts of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito.

To accept the White House job in June 2007, Gillespie severed all ties to his bipartisan public affairs firm Quinn Gillespie and Associates (QGA), one of Washington, D.C.'s top 10 government relations firms. During Gillespie's seven years as its co-chairman, QGA's clients achieved a string of high-stakes public relations and policy objectives.

A former chairperson of the Republican National Committee, Gillespie in 2004 became the first GOP chair in 80 years to preside over his party's winning the White House, House and Senate. His aggressive outreach to African-American and Hispanic voters was a highlight of his tenure, and he was known for being an effective advocate on television and talk radio shows.

The chairmanship was Gillespie's third stint at the RNC. In 1996 he was a close aide to then-chair Haley Barbour, now governor of Mississippi. His first job was as a phoner in the basement of the party's headquarters.

One of a small number of Americans to have had offices in the West Wing of the White House and within steps of the Dome of the U.S. Capitol, Gillespie was a long-time aide to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

As policy and communications director for the House Republican Conference, he was a principal drafter of the Contract with America, the 1994 campaign platform on which Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. He edited the book version of Contract with America, which reached number two on The New York Times best-seller list.

Gillespie is the author of Winning Right: Campaign Politics and Conservative Policies, published by Simon and Schuster in spring 2006. He is a popular public speaker represented by Leading Authorities speaker's bureau.

Gillespie volunteered as general chairman of Bob McDonnell's successful campaign for the Virginia governorship. He serves on the board of trustees of his alma mater, Catholic University of America. As a student at CUA, Gillespie got his first job on Capitol Hill, as a Senate parking lot attendant.

The “Assessing Obama's First Year” lecture series has featured both faculty experts and national speakers, including David Plouffe, who attended UD and played a central role in the campaign of President Barack Obama, and David Axelrod, senior adviser to the president.

The lecture series celebrates UD's position at the epicenter of politics during the fall 2008 presidential election and builds on successful election events on campus, including an earlier lecture series and an Election Night program that drew a large crowd to the Trabant University Center.

A Bloomberg news service reporter wrote that UD was at the epicenter of the 2008 election, with the Democrats represented by Plouffe and Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden and the Republicans by Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser to John McCain. All attended UD. Biden made a late campaign stop on campus last fall and Plouffe and Schmidt returned for a lively discussion across the aisle in April.

The fall lecture series is sponsored by the departments of Communication and Political Science and International Relations, the Office of the Provost, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy.