Would You Work For The Bloomberg Campaign?

Politico noted yesterday that the Bloomberg campaign is on a hiring spree. What reporter Sally Goldenberg didn't mention, however, is that there is no one out there left to hire but the dregs. All the vaguely competent political operatives-- plus scores of second, third and fourth tier operatives-- have already signed on to other campaigns-- presidential, senatorial, congressional, gubernatorial, etc. There's pretty much nothing left but the garbage. (By all means, do see the spoofy video-- that caused Bloomberg to fire the creator-- below.) As for the dregs Bloomberg is hiring...

Goldenberg wrote that Bloomberg is deploying his unlimited-budget-to-buy-the-election to go on a hiring spree and that he's hired more than 300 people so far to work on his campaign. If they're anything like Kyle Layman, Bloomberg's campaign is DOA. After all, there was a reason no one had scooped Layman and other available operatives up-- and it is primarily only the most mercenary and desperate operatives who would even work for Bloomberg. He's been hiring many people from failed campaigns. And another option Bloomberg has taken has been to hire people who know nothing about electoral politics.

His headquarters on Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side employs more than 200 people, including familiar faces from his days in City Hall. Former deputy mayors Kevin Sheekey and Patti Harris are his campaign manager and chair, respectively.

Among his recent hires is Jeff Glueck, CEO of Foursquare, a mobile app that allows users to virtually check into bars and restaurants. Glueck, who cut his teeth in Silicon Valley, will work as director of digital research & engagement, according to a release from Bloomberg’s team. Last week he announced his departure from the company on Twitter, teasing his next role as being “at the intersection of my passions for tech and politics.”

He will work alongside Gary Briggs, the Facebook executive who was named Bloomberg’s chief marketing officer.

The former mayor, who has a long record of funding Republicans as well as Democrats, has already spent more than $100 million on ads for his campaign.




And he’s got the cash to outspend his opponents many times over. When he entered the race on Nov. 24, Forbes calculated his wealth to be $54.1 billion. As of Thursday evening it had climbed to a cool $55.6 billion.

Team Bloomberg is also picking off the carcasses of fallen Democratic candidates as he bulks up his team.

He is naming Cassandra Henry, who worked as chief of staff to the deputy campaign manager of Beto O’Rourke’s failed presidential campaign, as his deputy states director.

And days before Sen. Kamala Harris dropped out of the race, Bloomberg picked up her staffer Kelly Mehlenbacher, who handled operations for Harris' embattled bid. Mehlenbacher worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and is Bloomberg’s deputy chief operating officer.

Other new hires include former aides to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 race -- Brynne Craig will be senior adviser, Carlos Sanchez is national political director and Jason Rodriguez was named deputy political director.

One top operative told me that people in her field don't have to believe in the candidate they work for but that it helps. "Bloomberg," she said, "is just a step too far. Look at what happened to Symone Sanders' credibility when she went from working for Bernie Sanders to working for... what do you call him? Status Quo Joe Biden? She's become a joke in the industry... Who wants to get tarred with the Bloomberg stench? No one with a proven track record who wants a long-term career... But who knows? Look at all those endorsements he's buying from mayors he's buying with his open checkbook." 


Another highly successful campaign operative added that "Not only is 'Little Michael' hiring laid off staff and bottom of the barrel scum... he’s hiring folks who have recently been fired by B list 2020 campaigns. For example, he’s hired a California communications director (former DCCC stooge) who was recently fired from a congressional campaign in Texas. Operatives in Texas tell me this was due to his astounding incompetence, horrible work ethic, and insensitivity to the local community (something the DCCC prides itself on). I’m sure that will go quite well when this individual needs to help Mayor Michael secure support in culturally prideful areas (chock full of votes) such as East L.A., San Bernardino, and Riverside. Michael will learn not all endorsements from local elected officials have a dollar price tag..."

The Cecilia Washburn Comedy Hour

Dancing With Wolves and Thugs
by Cecilia Washburn

It was leaked that Robbie Mook (former DCCC executive director) and Marlon Marshall (Obama administration) have built a pathetic listserv to “get their rocks off” to the idea that they will be controlling Clinton 2016.

As Beltway losers, these two clowns love the idea that younger, less experienced staffers are sucking up to them by working social channels to be invited onto this listserv. They probably salivate to this concept while waiting for their non-existent phone call to be on a television show that would let that play arm-chair quarterback as a means of publicly auditioning for Queen Hillary.

I don’t find this concept of the listserv to be the most hysterical part of this story. Pathetic, childish, and immature? Yes! But hysterical? I’ll now let you know what I find hysterical…

1. The Reporting on This.

Once this story broke, Beltway “journalists” (sickening that you could call these folks “journalists”) started researching this story to find more dirt at an energy that they haven’t used since trying to find juicy details on Donna Rice, a former Miss South Carolina who was photographed on a yacht with presidential candidate Gary Hart.

They were able to un-earth fascinating details details on all of the operatives Clinton has met with in preparation for her 2016 debacle. Obscure names such as Michael Whouley and Jill Alper (blasts from the past) were brought to the world’s attention by these “journalists.”

The last time the name Michael Whouley was seriously spoken of was when Dennis Leary was cast to play the apparently drunk, coked out Whouley in the 2007 film Recount.

What the Beltway journalists failed to point out about the expert, Whouley, was that his claim to fame was publicly confusing the concept of an undervote and an over vote during the 2000 Florida recount. But details, who cares…

Wouldn’t it have been nice for these Beltway journalists to put the same effort as they have in this story into stories during say, the 2014 midterms? Let’s remember, these same “journalists” continually screwed up details on important races as they were lazily listening to the DCCC and their cronies.

But I guess it’s no surprise then that the DCCC operative-created listserv (the apparent skull and bones society of young, pathetic, unemployed operatives) is reason to get off their (the journalists) asses and do some digging.

Those are their cronies!

2. The Idea of Who Leaked this listserv to the Press

I must admit, as the phone calls poured in over this major breaking news, I did start having ideas about who it was that did this Judas-like act of leaking the listserv story. My hysterical (but plausible) hypothesis is that this came from competing interests who have been invited onto this listserv.

I think that there is a strong possibility that this story was leaked as a team effort by the stooges at EMILY’s List who have a vested interest in making Stephanie Schriock the campaign manager of Clinton 2016. Schriock-- an invitee of this listserv due to her time with Mook on the Dean campaign-- most likely instructed her underlings (EMILY’s List thugs from all over the country, including Hawaii where they are still eating suckling pig, mourning Colleen Hanabusa’s political demise) to leak this story.

It truly does paint the “Mook-Mafia’s” major domos (Mook and Marshall) as arrogant, idiotic fools and paints the picture that if these boys can’t control their own secret society, how will they control Bill and Hillary on the trail?

My gut is that Schriock is so desperate because she knows she is out of the running. My sources tell me that the wrap on Schriock in the Beltway is that she doesn’t have the relationship with Bill Clinton necessary for any potential Clinton campaign manager.

The other idea is that the 3rd public contender—former DSCC ED-- Guy Cecil leaked this as a means of stabbing his competitors in the heart. In fairness to Guy, while his organization was dealt a horrible election night, he is known to be a shrewd operative who can play the game well. Maybe Rick Weiland or Shenna Bellows will have something to say about this idea…

So, at the end of the day, who manages Clinton 2016?

If Hillary has learned her lessons-- which I think she may have-- she will hire capable operatives who don’t appear at the high ranks of organizations like the “Mook-Mafia” or EMILY’s List, which lost almost every race they touched this year, some spectacularly, like Martha Coakley's, Hanabusa's, Michelle Nunn's, Wendy Greuel's, Wendy Davis', Emily Cain's, and Alex Sink's.

What she should-- and probably will-- do is hire someone who has managed multiple competitive Senate races successfully and has stayed out of the disgusting, pathetic, Beltway limelight. This would be unfortunate, though, for Beltway “journalists” who are waiting desperately for their buddies to have the inside track in Hillaryland so that they can continue their lazy, pathetic tendencies of being paid to do nothing-- and then report!

UPDATE: Backstabbing In Hillaryland Already

This morning, writing for Mother Jones, Andy Kroll was shaking his head at the backstabbing and infighting coming out of the pathetic Democratic Beltway operative Hillary is supposedly looking at to help her campaign. Here we go again.

The real news isn't that Mook and Marshall had a listserv for fellow Democratic operatives. It's that someone on the listserv leaked its contents in an effort to hurt Mook's chances of becoming the manager of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. In other words, the Clinton '16 effort has yet to officially launch and already the backstabbing and infighting has begun.

It's shades of Hillary '08 all over again.

Internal battles notoriously plagued Clinton's first presidential run. A Washington Post story in March 2008 described the "combustible environment within the Clinton campaign, an operation where internal strife and warring camps have undercut a candidate once seemingly destined for the Democratic nomination."

...The strategic leaking of Mook's and Marshall's listserv emails wouldn't have been at all out of place during Clinton's '08 campaign, as her aides bickered and backstabbed their way to defeat against a more cohesive-- or at least functional-- Obama campaign.