Johnston moved on to work for then-Vice President Al Gore as a senior White House aide in his communications office. During the 1996 Clinton-Gore re-election campaign she served as Midwest communications director. After Clinton's re-election, she became the deputy press secretary for the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

In 1997, she left Washington for Chicago, where she became the communications director for WBBM-TV, the city's CBS affiliate. But in 1999, she returned to the Clinton administration as director of communications for then-second lady Tipper Gore.

After Vice President Al Gore lost his 2000 bid to become president, Johnston went to New York. She worked a short stint at Rolling Stone Magazine, before landing at Rodale, Inc., which publishes books, magazines and Web sites with a health and wellness bent. Johnston served as vice president of corporate communications, directing all of Rodale's press and public affairs divisions.

In 2005, Johnston left Rodale to work for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. In the midst of a corporate overhaul, Johnston was brought in as senior vice president of communications, overseeing corporate communications, media relations, internal communications, publications, and broadcasting. "This is a dream come true for me," she told her alma mater's newspaper, UCLA's Daily Bruin. "I wanted to come back to Los Angeles, and I've been a lifelong Dodgers fan."

She stayed with the Dodgers until 2007, when another communications department shake-up led her to resign. She stayed in southern California, working as a communications consultant for the Stand Up to Cancer campaign, sponsored by the Entertainment Industry Foundation. The campaign culminated in a September 2008 television special that aired on the three major networks simultaneously, raising more than $100 million for cancer research.

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