Cathie Black's "common touch"

Michael Appleton for The New York Times

Cathleen P. Black, the mayor’s pick to lead New York schools, waiting for a taxi outside her Park Avenue apartment.

She grew up sheltered and privileged, in a middle-class Irish enclave of Chicago at midcentury, attending Catholic schools and riding horses at a country club where blacks and Jews were not allowed...She was the newspaper industry’s chief lobbyist in the 1990s, fighting a ban on tobacco advertising, and she occasionally mused about running for office. But she has otherwise barely dabbled in the public sphere: describing her strengths in internal documents, the Coca-Cola Company, where she is a longtime board member, leaves unchecked the box next to “governmental, political or diplomatic expertise.” She has shown a common touch as president of Hearst Magazines since 1995 by riding in yellow cabs rather than black limousines. (NYT)