I don’t envy Amy Kempe, Governor Carcieri’s new press secretary, but I do wish her luck, and I look forward to seeing how this 36-year-old public relations operative fits in at the State House.

Working in Rhode Island for Boston-based Regan Communications, she handled clients, such as Newport Grand, on the political periphery. Now, in a job that pays $93,480, she’s at the right hand of a governor always in the news and often in the bunker.

When I asked Newport Grand’s Diane Hurley if Kempe can handle the State House pressure, she said, “I’ve put her under pressure in terms of public relations for Newport Grand and she’s performed beautifully.”

Regan Communications honcho George Regan says he encouraged Kempe to sign on with Carcieri. “She’s a female me… smart as hell, very aggressive. … very pleasant, and she’s got an edge.”

Kempe says, “I try to be honest. I try to be helpful.”

That’s nice to hear. But, for the most part, press secretaries are only as effective as the people they are working for want them, or allow them, to be.

Republican Kempe, who lives in Newport, grew up in Jamestown, once unsuccessfully ran for town council there, and has volunteered in GOP campaigns.

But what might interest you more is that her mother, Bonnie, was a school bus driver, and her father, Paul, was a Hillside Farms milkman. The family had a farm and, as a hobby, raised goats they would show at 4H and state fairs.

Kempe says, “My sisters and I would get up every morning and help do chores, and every afternoon, and then get the goats ready for the goat shows on the weekend.”

They would milk the goats for the family’s consumption and to give to local youngsters who were lactose intolerant.

Did she come to resent the goats? “No. I mean, it gives you a sense of responsibility when you’re very young in that you need to take care of them every day. It was, certainly, a novelty and fun and they’re cute and your friends want to come over and pet the baby goats and every-thing. But as you do get older in your teenage years it definitely puts a damper on your time.”

Kempe majored in history at the State University of New York in Albany and has a master’s in modern European history from the University of Rhode Island.

She says she admires Carcieri’s commitment to change and the easy way he and his wife, Sue, relate to people. In fact, besides being interviewed by the governor, she met with the first lady.

The Carcieris indeed can be charming. But they also can seem uncaring, as evidenced by their unwillingness months ago to meet with Southeast Asian teens who felt the first couple was dismissive of their community.

“That was before my time,” says Kempe, not wanting to be drawn into the flap.

There have been storms over immigration, the budget, the economy and mismanagement. But Kempe says neither the governor nor his wife suggested the administration is in trouble.

Still, Kempe is on a rocky path. Journalists and press secretaries are thrown together; it’s nice if they get along, but clashes come with the territory. “The press corps has a job to do, I have a job to do,” Kempe says, and everyone tells her to get a thick skin.

Good advice, for her — and for the governor. He loves radio talk shows but distances himself from reporters, and he needs to regain his media footing.

Regan says, “If anyone can help, it will be Amy, and if he can’t be helped, it’s not Amy’s fault.”

M. Charles Bakst is The Journal’s political columnist.

mbakst@projo.com