Princella grew up in Wynne, Arkansas in a five-room trailer, with Democratic, albeit conservative, parents: a mother who is who is vice principal at Wynne High School, and a father who is minister at a non-denominational, mostly white church. She got the political bug in high school – she was elected Governor of Girls State, and started doing political internships, and became a Republican.

“I was never a normal teenager,” she says, unsurprisingly, sitting at a borrowed laptop in one of those anonymous brick apartment complexes in the Virginia suburbs. Princella is in DC for a few days, to see if she can get a handle on her immediate future. She’s crashing with a friend who works for Newt Gingrich, her former employer – she was spokesperson for his group American Solutions from 2007 until 2009, when she went to work as director of communications for Louisiana Congressman Anh “Joseph” Cao.

Unlike other twenty-somethings, who have mostly their parents getting on their cases about what they are doing with their lives, Princella has Newt Gingrich weighing in on the subject. Newt, who says Princella is among the vanguard of young black conservatives, tells me on the phone that he thinks she should go to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Princella D. Smith has been selected by The American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL) as a delegate to Turkey for an 11-day political exchange program in mid-September.

Besides Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Republicans are hard pressed to point to very many young, smart, and charismatic voices; Princella Smith is all three.

Rumor has it that Princella Smith the fmr Spokesperson for Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions has her eyes on Arkansas 1st Congressional District.

HHR Blog Radio sits down with Princella Smith as she speaks on her skyrocketing from the unknown to center stage at the 2004 Republican Convention. This week Princella speaks to HHR’s Rasio Host Andrew Simon about her continued use of her education, charisma, and determination to make extraordinary strides.

Gerard Matthews, Arkansas Times “My life pretty much changed overnight.” That’s how native Arkansan Princella Smith describes speaking at the 2004 Republican National Convention at the age of 20. She got to the stage by winning a speech contest sponsored by MTV called “Stand Up and Holla,” and soon found herself thrust into the national [...]