Mercy in the White House
Mercedes Viana helps spread a message of faith and freedom.
By Kathryn Jean López

Often speaking Spanish from her phone in the Old Executive Office Building (adjacent to the White House), Mercedes M. Viana is the voice of the White House for many “specialty media” outlets. The 30-year-old daughter of a former Cuban dissident and Spaniard mother works as director of specialty media for the White House Office of Media Affairs.

“I’ve never heard anything but praise for her, and in the position she holds, that’s quite an achievement,” says Raúl Damas, director of Latino Opinions, a polling group specializing in GOP Hispanic polling. Adds Tim Goeglein, special assistant to President George W. Bush and
deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, “Mercy matches her name: She is a kind, cool-under-pressure voice for the administration.”

Viana worked with Hispanic media on then-Governor Bush’s presidential campaign and on the inaugural committee. Before getting involved with the Bush team, she was the Washington representative for Florida International University. She attended FIU as an undergraduate, earning a bachelor’s degree—and Summa Cum Laude honors—in political science in 1994. Viana received a master’s of public administration degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., in 1997.

Her job in the White House, she says, is full of surprises. “There is no average day. Every day is dealing with different issues that affect the Hispanic community, or the other portfolios that I deal with.” The media outlets Viana works with are wide-ranging—everything from women’s-interest magazines to religious publications; from the glossy Glamour to the Spanish-language television network Telemundo to the Christian magazine World.

Her message, however, is no different than the president’s, no matter who she is talking with. “The message is the same, just sometimes in a different language,” says Viana. Literally.

And don’t let her name fool you into thinking she’s just a political softie. She’s “dead-on when it comes to effective communications,” says Barbara Ledeen, director of outreach at the Senate Republican Conference. On issues such as the Miguel Estrada nomination fight in the Senate, says Ledeen, Viana “keeps mistakes from happening. She has good instincts.”

Viana’s youthful presence in the White House is not uncharacteristic of the Bush administration. It’s “a very good investment” to have people like Viana on the White House team, says Manuel Miranda, an aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. “This administration is developing young people. When you realize how many people got their start in the Reagan administration,” he says, you realize how “vital and farsighted” that is. “She’s the next generation,” says Ledeen.

Viana is married to Matt Schlapp, another key administration official, special assistant to the president and deputy director of political affairs, working under Karl Rove. They met in the early days of the new administration, but “it took him a very long time to ask me out, ” she says. The president’s commitment to family, she adds, helped make their courtship and marriage possible. The White House’s “top-down” emphasis on family, faith, and “keeping yourself physically and mentally sound” is an important part of the administration, and essential to her functioning, says Viana, a Catholic. “We feel very blessed.”

And not just about their marriage. “It has been such an honor to serve such a strong, solid leader.” For Viana, the daughter of a Cuban dissident, it is the only place she can imagine being at this moment in history. “My father has been an incredible role model and inspiration in my life. He has taught me about the importance of freedom,” says Viana. “President Bush,” she says, “carries that same value. He appreciates freedom; he values freedom. That’s why it’s so easy and such an honor to work for this president—because I believe that. It is so important in all our lives, and I grew up knowing that.”

To top off her busy and successful young life, Viana is also at work on the next generation of faithful freedom lovers—Mercy and Matt’s first child is due this month.

Kathryn Jean López is the editor of National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com) and an associate editor of National Review.