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| Ms. Pope (in purple) with her husband & friends |
It took the media more than
four years to track down any of U.S. President Barack Obama's white ex-girlfriends, but in
one week they can find Rep. Paul Ryan's black ex-girlfriend. Hell, even the
British media was on the case! How the hell did the British media out-scoop the American media (especially the Chicago media?!) on this one?
Ms. Pope is pretty much as I expected her to be: on the preppy side, dark-skinned (white American men who I've seen on the street with black girlfriends tend to go this route), and a sorority girl or cheerleader.
Some background: she's a realtor in Chicago, she's 40 years old, she married to her second husband a few months ago, she's an Obama supporter (or was as late as 2009) but has donated to Paul Ryan's Congressional campaign in the past, and she ain't talking to the media. She was on the Miami University cheerleading squad during Rep. Ryan's frat-boy days, and they dated for five years. Well, she's pretty and clearly loves to swirl. From the Daily Mail (UK): "This is the cheerleader Paul Ryan dated at college who helped forge his uncompromising opposition to racism. The relationship and the backlash he suffered from his so-called friends were a formative experience in the political evolution of the Republican vice-presidential pick who described himself as a 'big, big fan' of Martin Luther King and is a staunch advocate of civil rights. Today Mail Online reveals the woman whose romantic attachment led Ryan, who electrified the Republican convention in Tampa with his speech on Wednesday night, to experience racism first hand."
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| Deneeta Pope was on Miami University's cheerleading squad |
Ol' girl ain't talking to to media, and neither is her new husband: "Pope, who married her second husband in Italy in May this year, loyally declined to comment on their relationship when approached by MailOnline. A registered Democrat since at least 2008, in 2009 she made three donations of $324 each to President Barack Obama's inaugural fund."
Given that Rep. Paul Ryan is a known fitness nut, they probably bonded over fitness (
scroll down for a 2010 Wall Street Journal video of Ms. Pope): "She worked out twice a day, running, strength training, kickboxing and doing Pilates. In one grueling session each day, she’d do 60 push-ups in sets of 20, along with 200 sit-ups and squats, to keep in shape for the team, a fellow teammate said. Pope became good at juggling her heavy sporting commitments with her Marketing & Management Information Systems degree. Miami University's current head cheerleading coach Cindi Byrge was an assistant coach at the time that Pope was pictured in the squad’s photo in 1992. She remembers her as a 'lovely girl and excellent cheerleader'. It is not known how the two met or at what point in their college education but it is clear that they both had much in common, not least their sporting prowess and steely will to succeed."
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| Paul Ryan (1st row, 3rd from left) was in Delta Tau Delta when he met her |
They broke up when Rep. Ryan went to D.C. for a political career, and she headed for Chicago: "Records held by the Federal Election Commission show that Pope, then 28 and working for Ernst and Young, gave $1,000 to his Republican primary campaign in 1998 and the same amount for his general election race. He won both elections, putting him on track for political stardom and perhaps one day the U.S. presidency. Friends of Pope say that she has recently been discussing ‘my friend Paul Ryan’ and his vice-presidential campaign on Facebook, clearly still interested in his progress in life - one that the two had at one time had thought about sharing together."
