Having written about the SEIU’s other man in the White House, Patrick Gaspard, on numerous occasions, this news comes as no surprise.
Following the November election, the Democrats are moving quickly to ensure that a repeat “shellacking” doesn’t happen in 2012. In so doing, the DNC is tapping Gaspard, the former political director of New York’s powerful SEIU 1199, to go help the DNC prepare the Democrats’ strategy.
Via the Blaze:
In another major shakeup signaling the Obama camp is preparing to launch the president’s reelection campaign, Democratic National Committee DNC chairman Tim Kaine announced Thursday that executive director Jennifer O’Malley Dillon will leave the party to serve as deputy campaign manager, and White House political director Patrick Gaspard will move in to replace her at the DNC.
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Gaspard also previously worked as a top official at the powerful New York SEIU local 1199 and turned down an offer last year for the number two top job in the union’s national organization.
In his announcement, Kaine wrote that Gaspard “understands the importance of grassroots politics and team building… Working together, I am confident that we can protect the progress of the past two years, achieve important electoral victories in 2011 and 2012.”
The Daily Caller notes:
Gaspard comes from the same world of radical left-wing community organizing that shaped Barack Obama. Gaspard is well schooled in the brutal, street-smart organizing tactics taught by the late Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals. He’s the hatchet man Obama sent to New York over a year ago to strong-arm then-Gov. David Paterson into dropping his reelection campaign. As executive director running the DNC’s day-to-day operations Gaspard will oversee Organizing for America, a project of the DNC supposedly modeled on Alinskyite organizing principles. (Former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine will remain as general chairman of the DNC.)
Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo to Haitian parents, very little is known about this Rasputin-like power behind the throne. Gaspard shuns publicity and is extremely reluctant to speak to the media on the record. Look him up on Nexis and you will find virtually nothing about this otherwise influential counselor to the leader of the free world.
But his colleagues hold him in high esteem. “Patrick is the best political mind of his generation in New York and maybe the nation,” according to Kevin Sheekey, a lieutenant of New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. “I wouldn’t dispute that,” added David Axelrod, a senior advisor in the Obama White House.
As Gaspard has been the SEIU’s full-time guy inside the White House since President Obama took office—what better way for the SEIU to keep an eye on their investment?—Democrats must feel that moving Gaspard to the DNC will help Nancy Pelosi fulfill her prediction that Democrats will take back the House in 2012.
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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776
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