Free Republic

Princella Smith, 26, will announce on Saturday that she is running for Congress in Arkansas’s 1st District. Some would say she is too young. Others might point to other potential hurdles: She’s running in eastern Arkansas, a district that hasn’t elected a Republican since 1872 in a Southern state that has never elected a black person to a congressional or state-wide office. “I think I’m the person to do this,” Smith said. “I’m going to tell people to come on board with me, listen to these ideas, and that we can get people excited again about the Republican Party.”

As for Smith’s future, the press secretary says she’s toying with the idea of running for office in Arkansas one day. Her fans are already one step ahead of her. The Facebook fan group Draft Princella for U.S. Congress is steadily gaining names of voters who want Smith to run against Rep. Berry, the incumbent in her home district. “I think in the long run she will be an elected official,” says Gingrich. “Her desire to serve people and her passionate interest in public policy make her somebody who will run for office.”

In two weeks, Republicans from around the country will convene in New York to rally in support of President George W. Bush, and to listen to an exuberant 20-year-old named Princella Smith. Smith earned her plane ticket to the Big Apple by authoring the winning entry in MTV's Choose or Lose Stand Up and Holla! essay contest, and she'll deliver her words to the 2004 Republican National Convention next Tuesday. The rural Arkansas native's essay, selected by her peers on ChooseorLose.com from more than 1,000 entries, discusses her support of Bush and his call for young people "to do nothing...