Louise Janine Thornton was White House Communications Director for President Matthew Santos and a major adviser during his presidential campaign.
Biography[]
Pre-Bartlet[]
Thornton was born in Trenton, New Jersey as the youngest of four children, having three older brothers. Her father was the athletic director and football coach of the high school she and her brothers attended, and her mother was a dental hygienist.
In high school Thornton was on the debate team and was known for usually winning, she also took Spanish and French during high school. She graduated valedictorian from high school before going to Syracuse University for Communications. She spent the second half of her junior year learning abroad (where she became fluent in both Spanish and French), and covered the Olympics for Syracuse's newspaper, radio station, and television channel. After Syracuse she received her masters in Communication at the University of Pennsylvania while also working for Women's Word, a weekly magazine for the empowerment of woman, as well as support of single or abused mothers, and young women.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania she moved to New York and became the Assistant to the Media Director for Women's Word before moving up to become Media Director. When Maureen Hogan the CEO of Women's Word decided to run for Congress she made Louise the media director for her campaign for Congress which was successful.
Bartlet's Terms[]
Louise liked the fast-paced atmosphere of the campaign and stayed in politics working on four more Congressional campaigns, two Senatorial campaign, and a Gubernatorial campaign. It was during her work with Congressman Lloyd Burnes' (the House Minority Whip) re-election campaign that she met Josh Lyman who was the Floor Manager for the House Minority Whip. She only lost two campaigns (one Congressional campaign and the Gubernatorial campaign "Gelsey for Governor"). After losing the gubernatorial campaign (despite it being hailed as a successful media campaign) she temporarily left politics to run The Patricia Lawrence Fund, a charity for impoverished girls around the United States to go to college. She returned to politics in 2004 to run another congressional campaign that was successful. She ran another Senatorial campaign before going to work on the Santos for President campaign.
Santos Campaign[]
Thorton joined the campaign after the Democratic Convention as Communications Director. Her addition to the campaign was by accident when she was invited to a meeting of Democratic media consultants by Ronna Beckman who had misheard Joshua Lyman tell her to not invite Thorton. However she impressed Josh, with her analysis of his campaign, so much that he decided to hire her.
During her time as Communications Director she advocated the use of negative ads against Arnold Vinick. She began a sexual relationship with Otto that was revealed to the other staffers on Election Night.
Post-Bartlet[]
Following Matt Santos's election, Lou was appointed as White House Communications Director.
Appearances[]
Season 7[]
- The Mommy Problem
- Message of the Week
- Mr. Frost
- Here Today
- The Al Smith Dinner
- The Debate
- Undecideds
- The Wedding
- Running Mates
- Two Weeks Out
- Welcome to Wherever You Are
- Election Day (Part I)
- Election Day (Part II)
- Transition
- The Last Hurrah
| PREDECESSOR Will Bailey |
White House Communications Director 2007 – present |
SUCCESSOR unknown |