Karen Hanretty

Political and Media Strategies

Karen Hanretty is a political and communications strategist who specializes in strategic

communications, issue advocacy and political campaigns. Over the past decade, Hanretty
has developed a strong reputation for taking complex issues and creating news coverage that
explains the underlying political motivations that drive public policy. From Presidential,
gubernatorial and state senate elections, Hanretty has had a seat at the table of significant
political campaigns that drive the news of the day.

Hanretty is also a national political commentator, regularly appearing on MSNBC, Fox News
Channel and CNN to provide national political analysis on programs such as Hardball with
Chris Matthews, The O’Reilly Factor and Anderson Cooper 360. She is a frequent guest on Fox
News’ Hannity & Colmes where she has appeared as guest host, and she currently writes a
political blog for The Hill – a congressional newspaper in Washington, D.C.

In 2007, Hanretty was recruited to serve as Deputy Communications Director for Senator
Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign and managed the day to day press operations of his
campaign.

During California’s historic gubernatorial recall campaign of 2003, she served as press
secretary to the successful Schwarzenegger for Governor Campaign and managed the press
operation for the governor-elect during his transition into office. In the capacity of press
secretary, Hanretty helped coordinate communications and media strategy for one of the
country’s most talked about political campaigns and served as a principal spokesperson to
hundreds of media outlets throughout the country and around the world

From 2003-2005, Hanretty was Communications Director for the California Republican
Party. In this senior-level position, she served as chief spokesperson for the Party,
coordinated communications and media strategy and developed rapid response effort on
behalf of the party operations and Governor Schwarzenegger’s 2005 special election
campaign.

Hanretty currently operates out of Alexandria, Virginia and maintains a presence in

California, where she resided for 20 years.

| Mobile: (916) 752-2630

E-mail: Karen@KHanretty.com