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Campaign confidantes: six perspectives on California's 2008 presidential primary

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CAMPAIGN CONFIDANTES

SIX PERSPECTIVES ON CALIFORNIA’S 2008 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY

by

Amanda Ruth Price

A Professional Project Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(PRINT JOURNALISM)

May 2008

Copyright 2008 Amanda Ruth Price

ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...iii

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1

Chapter 1: Fred Thompson; Mike Richman………………………………………………3

Chapter 2: John Edwards; Noelle Seguin…………………………………………………9

Chapter 3: Hillary Clinton; Ace Smith………………………………………………..…15

Chapter 4: Rudy Giuliani; Brent Lowder………………………………………….…..…21

Chapter 5: Barack Obama; Mitchell Schwartz…………………………………………..27

Chapter 6: Mitt Romney; Dick Ackerman……………………………………………….33

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………......38

iii
ABSTRACT

Political campaigns run on a mix of money, energy and strategy, but people are
the key ingredient. The consultants, the state chairs, the grassroots volunteers; they’re the
ones who put the pieces together.
This series of six profile features takes a behind-the-scenes look at Democrats and
Republicans working on the ground during the presidential primary campaigns in
California. Most of all, these articles endeavor to address what draws people to the rough-
and-tumble campaign lifestyle – and what it is about electoral politics that keeps them
going.

1
Introduction

Presidential politics: It’s as much about the strategy as it is about the candidates
themselves. And when it comes to strategy, the people behind the scenes of a campaign –
the political consultants – do the brainstorming and the heavy lifting. But it’s about
raising campaign funds and voter energies, too – which is where the state chairs and
armies of grassroots volunteers come in.
This year, campaign workers on the West Coast had special challenges. The
California primary has never been so early, and with this year’s Feb. 5 vote, the state’s
delegates matter more than ever. The environment is sink or swim – roll with the punches
or get bowled over by the competition. This makes for long hours for grassroots
volunteers, crack-of-dawn conference calls for political consultants, and lots and lots of
handshaking for the campaigns’ state chairs.
Democrat or Republican, the months before Super Tuesday became a marathon
season of fundraisers, rallies, debates and endorsements, one right after the other. Some
candidates suffered strategic missteps and poor showings in early contests; some
candidates didn’t even make it to Feb. 5.
This means the people inside the campaign machine had to fight burn out by
remembering why they do what they do in the first place. For some, they thrive on an
electricity in the air. For others, it’s simple competition. Ideology and partisan
commitment – putting a member of the party faithful inside the White House – drives
some politicos, but for most, it’s at least partly about intangibles: the greater good,
change for the better, hope for the future.
2
The stakes are high, and so is the pressure, but for the people working within the
presidential campaigns, it’s part of the thrill. Win or lose, they wouldn’t have it any other
way.

3
Chapter: 1
Candidate: Fred Thompson
California Executive Director: Mike Richman

“The important thing for me is to see them on the day that they’re supposed
to be sworn in, for them to stand up there. There’s no reward here for second
place.”
– Mike Richman

He wore a light blue shirt and a deeper blue tie, but this young Republican stood
on a stage in one of the reddest counties in America.
Mike Richman grinned as he walked past the Fred Thompson banner behind him.
“Security. Unity. Prosperity.” And – as the senator’s supporters, fondly known as
Fredheads, hoped to add to the list – “Victory.”
His hands firmly clasped, Richman looked out over the rows of seated rally-goers,
a crowd of the Orange County elderly and patriotic, the kind of crowd that “snaps to
attention when they see the color guard,” as one Thompson supporter handing out
stickers said.
Richman himself was a good deal younger than the sea of graying voters present
at Laguna Woods Village Clubhouse 3 that Saturday morning, though he won’t say by
how much. “A gentleman never tells his age,” he’ll tease.
4
Ageism, it seems, is bad for the business of politics. Suffice it to say, Richman is
a twenty-something political consultant who’s worked on more than 20 races during his
budding political career.
And until his candidate dropped out of the race, Mike Richman, the fresh, young
face, a Santa Monica-born California golden boy, was the executive director of Sen. Fred
Thompson’s California campaign.
He acted the part. Offstage at the event, earpiece in place, he was giving
directions, motioning to the vacancies in a section of plush, maroon seats below the
center aisle. “We just have to make sure all the seats are filled,” Richman told another
member of the Thompson entourage.
“Even though they gave me the title, Mike Richman was in control,” said Donna
Delano, the Southern California volunteer chair for Fred ’08 and event coordinator for the
Saturday rally. “He knew everything that was going on at all times,” she said.
That, Delano said, is to Richman’s credit. For the executive director himself,
smooth sailing is always the goal. “You’re always watching,” Richman said. “You’re
always looking around the room to make sure that there’s nothing that you didn’t see that
could come up and cause a problem.”
It all comes down to the type of campaign manager Richman is and the type of
campaign he wants to run. He likes drafting a campaign plan and seeing it all fall into
place, exactly as envisioned. And he likes seeing his clients campaign hard, because it
makes him work even harder.
It was Dec. 1, and on the day of this Orange County rally, there were 65 days left
before the California primary. As Fred Thompson took the stage, the candidate began
5
courting the retirement vote in earnest, referencing the estate tax issue and his “Law and
Order” roots.
The rally-goers seemed star-struck before this man, part-politician, part-celebrity,
but Mike Richman was unfazed. He had a job to do.
“I’m not a stargazer anymore,” he said, reflecting on his first years inside the
political bubble. “I’ve seen a lot of people, I’ve met a lot of people.” He’s crossed paths
with Gerald Ford, President Bush and every candidate on this year’s Republican ticket.
Richman is far past the days of taking photos with the big names. He hadn’t yet
met the tall Tennessee senator with a Southern drawl when he started working on his
campaign back in September.
This Southern California campaign swing marked only the second time Richman
had stood face-to-face with his client. Shaking hands with the senator was nice, Richman
will say, but his responsibilities to the campaign remain the only star he follows.
“The important thing for me is to see them on the day that they’re supposed to be
sworn in, for them to stand up there,” Richman said. “There’s no reward here for second
place.”
Thompson was lagging in the polls, but Richman remained confident that his
candidate would win a number of congressional districts that wanted a true conservative.
In the end, Thompson didn’t even make it to California, ending his campaign in
January, before the Feb. 5 primary. “Hey, only fools make predictions,” Richman had
said, back in the fall.
After the fact, he’s more willing to speculate. “Do I think we would have done
well? Yeah, I think that we could have done well,” Richman said. Still, he wouldn’t
6
second-guess Thompson; he respects the tough choice to bow out of the race that the
former senator – and now, former presidential hopeful – had to make.
Despite the outcome, Richman went in with a purpose. He wanted to win. “You
can’t win every campaign,” he said. “But I sure go in there going like I can win ‘em all.”
It was a lesson Richman learned early on, volunteering at a Woodland Hills
congressional campaign for Randy Hoffman. He was there after high school in the
summer, working on mailers and racking up paper cuts. “I just stuffed envelopes and I
learned how to do politics,” he said.
And, seeing Hoffman lose the 1998 race, Richman himself learned that victory
could be elusive in the world of politics. “That was hard. That was a tough year,”
Richman said. “That was the year of Clinton and Lewinsky, and Republican candidates
didn’t do well – congressional candidates. But it inspired me to want to keep learning
races and win them.”
Richman has become quite good at winning, working 13 victories out of 14 races
in 2006. He’s helped put Steve Poizner in the California insurance commissioner’s spot,
and he’s helped make Board of Equalization member Michelle Steel the highest-ranking
Republican female officeholder in California.
“Mike’s reputation was stellar,” Steel said. “I heard that he had the attitude that
there was no problem too big, no mountain too tall, and he would get things done. I knew
that in order to win, I would need someone like him.”
But, as Richman likes to tell his clients, nobody bats a thousand. And when San
Jacinto mayor Jim Ayres ran for state Assembly in 2006, both of them would strike out
entirely.
7
It was a race with five well-funded candidates, Richman recalls. Ayres himself
agrees. “I was in a dogfight,” he said. “I was in a five-way dogfight.”
It was a tight political contest that left no room for missteps. “If I sound bitter, it’s
because I put a lot into it,” said Ayres, who hired JohnsonClark Associates, the
Sacramento-based political consulting firm where Richman was working at the time, to
run the Assembly race.
“He’s a charismatic guy, and he’s got a great smile, and he could probably sell
quicksand,” Ayres said.
Richman’s salesman’s gene is something he got from both of his parents,
Richman said. “I’m just selling people instead of coupons like my mom, or cabanas and
awnings like my dad’s company.”
His father’s life as the owner of a small retail business fit perfectly with
Republican ideals, as Richman watched his father deal with too many regulations and too
many taxes. “He would tell stories about his day, and it just made sense, you know?”
Richman said.
Despite a life spent in politics, Richman refuses to discuss his own. “It’s not about
what I believe in, it’s about what my clients believe in,” he said. Professional ethics mean
this politics-passionate twenty-something won’t debate the party platform.
It’s a trait that former coworkers remember fondly. “He’s never, ever going to go
behind your back and do something that would hurt you,” said Beth Walker, deputy
director of candidate operations at JohnsonClark Associates.
And it’s something that his Thompson cohorts really liked about his approach to
campaigning. “He comes across like he’s looking at the overall situation, not just what’s
8
going to benefit him,” said Richard Rios, state volunteer chair for the Fred Thompson
campaign.
For Richman, it’s a special brand of altruism. “I think you’re helping get people
elected who are working to make the world a better place,” he said.
Onstage that Saturday, Thompson was making his last Reagan reference of the
morning.
He ended his speech with a final pitch, looking out across the rows of voters
seated before the stage. “Let’s make sure, at the end of the day, that we can lay our heads
on our pillows and know that we’ve done something good for our country,” Thompson
said.
Somewhere in the wings and out of the spotlight, Mike Richman was listening,
but he didn’t need to. It was a pitch he’s been sold on for years.

9
Chapter: 2
Candidate: John Edwards
Grassroots Organizer: Noelle Seguin

“There’s a certain electricity to an election. And it all comes to a head on
election night.”
– Noelle Seguin

Watching the returns come in that November evening, Noelle Seguin could feel
the static spark in the air, and it wasn’t just from sitting too close to the television set.
“There’s a certain electricity to an election,” she said. “And it all comes to a head
on election night.”
It was the Carter-Ford contest of 1976, and feeling the political current course its
way through her consciousness, the six-year-old Seguin stayed awake for as long as her
parents would let her.
More than 30 years later, that same electoral electricity was there, on the corner of
Wilshire and San Vicente. Seguin was there, too, leading a crowd of sign-waving
Edwards supporters in a sidewalk turf battle against the “Clinton country” army.
With honking horns and chanting hordes, the atmosphere was super-charged, and
Seguin, one of Sen. John Edwards’ head grassroots volunteers in Southern California and
captain of several of his local “One Corps” voter group chapters, stood up straight,
drinking it all in.
10
Glancing toward the stoplight, she cupped her hands around her mouth, shouting
towards the Edwards faithful lining the streets. “Vote - for - Ed - wards, vote - for -
change!” she chanted, her delivery instructional and rhythmic.
Her eyes lit up like twin bulbs as she took a call. “I got people staggered down the
street,” she told the caller. “We’re having dueling chants right now.”
It was a mini-strategy session, and Seguin had to start coordinating Edwards’
arrival at the global warming forum that had already started next door.
With Sen. Clinton on the way and the unpredictability of Los Angeles traffic
already at work, negotiating a meeting place for Edwards enthusiasts and the candidate
himself wasn’t easy amid the crowd and the din.
But as her grassroots colleagues attest, Seguin can take it. “If we need an answer,
Noelle will get the answer within 20 seconds,” West Hollywood One Corps captain
Debbie Coffey said.
In the end, it was Seguin’s rally; she organized it and she worked with Edwards’
Chapel Hill staff to make it happen. “At every turn that morning, she made the right
decision,” said fellow grassroots supporter Maria Mancini.
Seguin was one of many working California’s grassroots circles for John Edwards
before the North Carolina senator ended his bid for the White House at the end of
January.
To begin with, there was no paid staff on the ground in the state. “We’re the non-
establishment candidate,” Seguin had said.
The self-organizing spirit and enthusiasm of the Edwards camp in California,
rather than a paycheck, was what kept them going.
11
“We have probably the strongest grassroots in California,” Seguin had said. The
38-year-old herself was a member of more than 50 Edwards One Corps groups
throughout the Southland, from the Grapevine to Palm Springs and from the northern San
Diego border to Ventura.
As the campaign geared up for the final push before the Feb. 5 primary, the
volunteer collective was becoming more active, and as the marathon campaign season
continued, Seguin was mindful of flagging support.
“We’re really looking for burnout, because burnout’s common,” she had said. “If
you go too quick, too fast, you get a lot of burnout.”
And with most of the mainstream media’s attention trained on Clinton and
Obama, Edwards supporters sometimes took to venting their frustrations on the One
Corps website.
“I was reading all these down things thinking, ‘OK, it’s time to rally the troops,’”
Seguin said. To cull the negativity, she posted a piece she’d written about the race
between Thomas Dewey and Harry Truman, “the ultimate underdog,” in her eyes.
“I see a lot of similarities,” Seguin said of the Edwards and Truman election
campaigns. “And it’s not over ‘til it’s over.”
It’s over now, but the volunteers don’t regret the time they spent together.
Seguin was good at fostering cohesiveness in the group, said Los Angeles for
Edwards co-captain Jodi Owen. “In a group of leaders, Noelle is a leader,” she said. Even
among those most involved in the campaign, Noelle was tireless. “She’s done more,
probably, than anyone I know,” Mancini said.
12
The 15 to 20 hours each week Seguin spent on e-mails and phone calls alone fell
outside of her time as a full-time UCLA student and a Veterans for Peace member. “I
wear three hats, actually,” she said. “This is my favorite hat, though.”
Seguin admits that politics was a first love for her. It hearkens back to the
excitement of that first political contest she remembers watching on TV as a little girl.
“I’m a champion of the underdog, and Carter, he was from Georgia, so his accent was
just like my grandma’s,” she said.
Her Southern Democrat grandmother used to debate her Republican father,
another family member bitten by the political bug at a young age. Like the young Noelle,
his moment came at age five, listening to radio broadcasts of the Willkie-Roosevelt
contest.
“Boy, I remember that election so well, it’s amazing,” Greg Seguin said. He
admits that his daughter takes after him in that sense. “We both got involved at a young
age and never really got out of it,” he remarked.
“I grew up in a political family,” Noelle said. “We weren’t like the Kennedys or
anything like that.” But like the Kennedys, who brought current events topics to the
dinner table, the Seguins used mealtime to talk politics.
Until 1992, Seguin took after her father; like most Orange County kids, she was a
Republican who believed what her parents believed.
Working and volunteering in Los Angeles changed that. “The first time I ever saw
a homeless person, I was 21 years old in Los Angeles,” Seguin said. These ugly truths –
poverty, desperation – get hidden in Orange County, she said, but in L.A., they’re in your
face.
13
She was in Los Angeles the night of the 1992 riots, and their impact, coupled with
her growing exposure to poverty and homelessness, led her to reassess her political
leanings and go Democrat, Seguin said.
“She’s very impassioned when it comes to the idea of justice and equity and our
society and where things should be going,” said her sister, Nicole Olson. And as a
candidate, Edwards shared those passions.
Olson called Noelle on Jan. 31, the day after Edwards dropped out of the race.
“‘The country just lost,’” Seguin said, recalling the words of her sister over the phone.
Seguin said many of Edwards’ former volunteers have experienced a bit of “post-
campaign depression.”
“The first month, you just really digest that things are not the way that had been
hoped,” she said. “It’s really, it’s the death of hope, and so you, you know – you mourn
the death.”
Seguin isn’t thrilled about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the two remaining
Democratic prospects. “I voted for Edwards in the Feb. 5 primary,” she said, noting that
she’ll vote for the Democratic nominee in November.
In the meantime, Seguin is getting excited about Congress. She’s joined a
blogging community devoted to electing “Edwards Democrats,” progressive candidates
who stand for the same things he stands for – like Gilda Reed from Louisiana and Larry
Kissell from North Carolina.
The goal? “To keep his platform alive,” Seguin said, and to put people in
Congress who believe in it, too.
14
Now, as Seguin watches election-night returns on television, the electricity in the
air will still be there, but she’ll be focused on how her “Edwards Democrats” are doing.
She’s a firm believer: If things get done, Seguin said, it’s because of Edwards
Democrats, the people who believe in what John Edwards is all about. “It’s because we
have the power and are able to hold the next president’s feet to the fire.”

15
Chapter: 3
Candidate: Hillary Clinton
State Director: Ace Smith

“There’s always an element of the competition, the game, seeing what you
do play out, having an effect on something that’s being played on a larger
scale.”
– Ace Smith

Vince Lombardi, former coach of the Green Bay Packers, used to say the best
defense is a good offense.
That was sports and this is politics, but Ace Smith, director of Hillary Clinton’s
California campaign, agrees with him 100 percent. It’s something he’s always told people
in the campaign world.
“It always works,” Smith says.
Working his second Clinton gig as the campaign’s Texas state director, Smith had
hoped to duplicate Clinton’s California primary win in the Lone Star state, a crucial
March 4 contest that was expected to make or break his candidate’s presidential bid.
Though Clinton lost the Texas caucus, she won the state’s popular vote by more
than 100,000 ballots. In the end, the Texas results, along with Ohio and Rhode Island,
were part of the recipe for a Clinton comeback.
16
A good offense was crucial in Texas, something the 49-year-old Smith pushed for
in California, keeping Clinton ahead of her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama.
‘We tactically took advantage of every possible – everything possible that could
help us,” Smith said of the California strategy. “And the Obama campaign missed a lot of
really huge opportunities to do the same.”
For one, Obama’s people should have figured out how to get more independent
voters to cast ballots in the Democratic primary. “It’s something that should have been
done 29 days out,” Smith said, something they needed to push “aggressively” but didn’t.
Despite Clinton’s lead at the end of 2007, Smith was still leading her campaign as
though they were 20 points down. It’s how he runs every campaign, and it became an
even more crucial strategy after primary contests in Iowa and New Hampshire failed to
spotlight a clear frontrunner.
Smith’s tactics paid off during California’s Super Tuesday contest, when his
client beat her rival by nine percentage points, owing largely to solid support from
women and Latino voters. It was a crucial win in Clinton country.
“California is going to be at the absolute center,” said Sean Clegg, former partner
in SCN Public Relations, Smith’s company. “And there you find Ace.”
Smith wasn’t always at the center of campaigns. He used to work the periphery as
an opposition researcher, but it wasn’t long before he evolved, becoming “one of, if not
the top state campaign manager,” said Chris Lehane, a public relations guru.
“He’s like Google stock in the political world.”
Meanwhile, Smith’s own political world is changing. He entered new territory
with Clinton’s campaign, his first foray into presidential politics. There were more hoops
17
to jump through, and 5:30 a.m. conference calls were routine, but he said he’s never had
more fun in his life.
Beneath the surface of this pale, balding, bespectacled man, the spirit of
competition courses its way through Smith’s veins. It’s a feeling he relishes.
“Anyone in the business who tells you that they do everything for ideologically
pure reasons is lying,” he said. “There’s always an element of the competition, the game,
seeing what you do play out, having an effect on something that’s being played on a
larger scale.”
Smith is able to see the big picture in the game of politics. “He doesn’t play
checkers,” Lehane said. “He plays chess.”
Though Smith dismisses his intimidation potential as “a lot of nonsense,” his
colleagues insist that going head-to-head with Smith can be a fearful proposition, a facet
of his reputation that has persisted since his opposition research days.
“You don’t want to mess with him,” said Mather Martin, Northern California field
director for the Clinton campaign. Smith is the idea man, she said, insisting that “I would
never in my right mind” choose to go up against him.
When candidates face Smith, they emerge defeated, often with “their entire
political future sort of hanging by a thread,” said Democratic political strategist Dan
Newman.
As another Democratic strategist noted, it’s Smith’s ability to see the big picture,
respond effectively, seize upon a key issue and take steps to define the opponent first –
“those are the reasons that Ace is feared.”
18
Newman, for one, insists that Smith’s a “sweet, kind, gentle person,” not “some
fire-breathing monster with blood dripping out of his mouth.” Still, watching Smith’s
eyes work behind his glasses, there’s a distinct sense that he has a habit of sizing people
up.
In essence, his brain is the real intimidation factor. According to Newman, Smith
is a “math genius” who can work magic at blackjack tables or crunch the numbers needed
to start sophisticated voter targeting.
“He’s a mad scientist in his approach to campaigns,” Newman said. “He doesn’t
do the cookie-cutter, formulaic approach.” Smith rails against using “cookbook” tactics,
the fixed ways of campaigning that mark, in his eyes, the biggest mistake political
hopefuls can make.
In following the formula, campaigns miss the fundamental questions all
candidates and consultants must ask themselves: What are the winning messages? Who
needs to hear them? And how do you deliver them?
And, according to Smith, these points need to be genuine. “I think creating
artificial messages through polling is one of the worst things that’s happened to this
business,” he said.
Smith’s approach to delivering Clinton’s message was a bit different during
California’s pre-primary season. As one of many working on the New York senator’s
presidential campaign, Smith didn’t have direct control over the message. “I have to
basically take whatever I’m given from the mother ship and make the best use of it,” he
said.
19
So Smith took Clinton’s national message – experience, readiness to lead – and
amplified it in California through grassroots work and endorsements, which reinforced
Clinton’s message and created a “sense of momentum.” “You can’t come up with a
message that’s diametrically opposed to someone’s persona,” Smith had said. “It has to
be something that’s believable.”
During Steve Soboroff’s 2001 mayoral campaign, which Smith led, Soboroff
learned the significance of sticking to the message. “[Smith] understands this psychology
of politics,” he said. “And he understands the thinking of the electorate that a candidate
needs to reach.” Soboroff remembers the experience fondly despite losing the race, which
he thinks could have been won with a bigger bankroll.
Yet Smith has never been one to inflate the budget. During Antonio Villaraigosa’s
mayoral campaign, Clegg said, headquarters were modest, “a small, flea-bitten office in
Little Tokyo.”
“The thing that made [Sen. Clinton’s] eyes light up is when [Smith] told her what
a cheapskate he is,” Clegg said, noting Smith’s financial style in managing campaigns.
In managing his own upkeep, too, Smith isn’t given to frills. On his way to
meetings and rallies, he’s carrying the same weathered leather briefcase, walking around
in the same weathered black shoes.
Smith and Clinton saw eye-to-eye on the money factor, but in other ways, too,
working for the presidential hopeful can be like looking in a mirror. Both are experienced
political veterans, and their shared ability to absorb and process information is striking.
Smith himself said Sen. Clinton’s mind is “almost like an old-fashioned,
photographic negative plate,” able to understand page after page of information.
20
Clegg lauded Smith’s “encyclopedic reservoir” of campaign plays and political
history, calling him a “contemporary historian.”
And Smith, whose given first name is “Averell” after W. Averell Harriman, a
former New York governor, shares Clinton’s ties – although symbolically – to the state’s
politics.
Smith himself has a deep history in California electoral politics dating back to his
father, Arlo Smith, who served as San Francisco district attorney and lost a race for
California attorney general to GOP candidate Dan Lungren in 1990.
Yet even with Smith’s veteran playbook, the current campaign was new territory.
“It’s nothing like anything I’ve done,” he said. Still, with two Clinton wins under his belt,
it hasn’t meant that Smith lacked new plays for his playbook – and a good offense, to
boot.

21

Chapter: 4
Candidate: Rudy Giuliani
California Executive Director: Brent Lowder

I think I’m smart enough now to realize – this probably isn’t the last
campaign I work on.”
– Brent Lowder

Brent Lowder has tried to escape the campaign grind before – but he keeps
coming back.
This time, it was the nobility of helping elect a U.S. president in a historic race
that spurred Brent Lowder to take the job as state executive director for Rudy Giuliani’s
California operation.
But more than anything, it was the candidate – and Giuliani’s Reagan-like
optimism – that induced the 34-year-old Lowder to endure another long, drawn-out
election season.
“The stars kind of aligned for this race for me,” he had said. “And whatever
happens, it’s probably unlikely that they’ll align like that again.”
Because, despite the addictive quality of campaign competition, campaign life is a
grind.
22
It’s a grind that exacts a toll on family, and a grind that means time on the road,
time away from his wife and two kids in Sacramento. “You put so much into [campaigns]
that I think you can only do that so many times in your life,” he said.
And it’s a grind that became even more grueling as Lowder watched Giuliani’s
national strategy sour in the run-up to Super Tuesday. The former New York City mayor
was out of the race before the California primary even arrived.
Lowder is quick to say that he couldn’t have predicted the way Giuliani’s
campaign would unravel, but headquarters’ disregard of the early primaries and their full-
throttle focus on Florida made Lowder nervous as early as November.
“I knew that I was going to be kind of beholden to the decisions that they made,”
he said. “But I started to see decision-making out of them that worried me a little.”
Ignoring the earlier contests in Iowa and South Carolina – essentially deciding not
to play – was taken for arrogance, and the voters retaliated. “I think it was hard to know
how much they would do that,” Lowder said. “But that was a fundamental mistake.”
Lowder would know; after all, he’s no novice.
He’s spent years racking up notches on his political belt, having bounced back
and forth between campaigns and the private sector for more than a decade. He’s a young
face in electoral politics, with soft eyes, side-swept brown hair and a near-cherubic smile,
but already he’s a veteran.
In the world of political consulting, said Eric Beach, a senior consultant in
California for the Giuliani campaign, Lowder’s star has risen to make him one of the
most prominent campaign minds in California.
23
“Brent’s the answer man,” said Emily Ernsdorf, finance coordinator for the Rudy
2008 campaign, who started her work with Lowder in August of 2006.
Yet even the answer man couldn’t foresee exactly how everything would turn out.
There were new wrinkles this time: The California primary had never been so early; the
calendar was compressed.
Lowder had honed his political savvy since his days as high school class
president, his earliest taste of campaigning. For one, former gubernatorial candidate Bill
Simon said, Lowder improved his rapport with donors to political campaigns. He had
been Simon’s on-the-road assistant, or “body guy,” during the 2002 governor’s race.
Lowder got his first exposure to the fundraising set as a donor attendant for
former governor Pete Wilson at the inaugural ball. He gave high-end VIPs the blue-chip
treatment – “if they popped a button on their tuxedo, they had somebody to call,” Lowder
said.
And he was quickly seduced by the rosy color of political life, a far cry from his
college job at an Olive Garden restaurant.
The 2008 presidential campaign had that same sort of “Hollywood quality,” as
Lowder put it – this time on a bigger stage than the political contests Lowder had
watched since his college years. It was something that he could finally check off his life’s
“to-do” list.
Despite Lowder’s occasional plans to escape the fast-peddling campaign cycle,
there is something about the political world that appeals to his own ideals.
24
He has never been the kind of guy who believes that everyone should get a trophy
in Little League. He believes in “meritocracy,” he said. He believes in working hard and
electing the best.
Although his mother was a single parent who was on and off welfare during
Lowder’s childhood, the household mentality was always a bit more Republican than
Democratic.
“You can be anything you want and you can do anything you want if you’re
willing to work your butt off,” Lowder said, echoing what he likes most about
Republican ideals and, in his professional life, the opportunities his campaign work has
given him.
Yet for Lowder, who was a kid with a paper route and a job for as long as he
could remember, politics never felt like a real career. And that was part of the problem.
“‘Geez, I’m just a paid political operative,’” Lowder thought. It was real fun, and
it was a “little sabbatical” of sorts from the real world, but it wasn’t a skill. It wasn’t real-
world experience.
So Lowder took a job doing the permitting for cell phone towers before finding a
way out through Bill Simon’s campaign. He had wandered back toward politics, but his
mind was still on the private sector.
With Simon’s blessing, he went to Wall Street to pursue a career in public
finance. After all, said Lowder, “who doesn’t like to call himself an investment banker at
some point?”
It was certainly more lucrative than pure politics. “Usually you don’t get rich in
politics,” Simon said. “And if you do, you’re probably going to jail.”
25
Despite the extra income, Lowder couldn’t stomach his own 20-year horizon.
“The idea of me doing something that’s the same for 20 years scares the hell out of me,”
he said. And in the end, there simply wasn’t enough political excitement in public finance
to keep him interested.
“When Rudy got in the race, that became the fuse that lit the flame to get back
into politics,” said Dr. Joel Strom, Giuliani’s state co-chair, who met Lowder during
Simon’s campaign.
“It’s a gut thing,” said Lowder of his affinity for Giuliani, more than a “check-the-
box” game along ideological lines. Having met the former New York mayor for the first
time near the end of 2001, just a month before he was named Time’s “Person of the Year”
and just two months after 9/11, “he was larger than life at that point,” Lowder said.
With the Rudy 2008 campaign knocking on his door, Lowder knew he couldn’t
pass up a place on the inside to simply stand on the sidelines.
Now, with the campaign over, Lowder doesn’t know what he’ll do next.
He thought there’d be no “Lowder & Associates” political consulting firm in his
future – he was tired of the balancing act between work and family – but now he’s not so
sure.
He does know, however, that next time, he wants a seat at the table. Lowder says
he’ll never get this involved in another campaign without having access to the candidate,
to how the larger decisions are made.
After securing Giuliani’s endorsement, the John McCain campaign was going
after Lowder, too. But he knows he wouldn’t get the seat at the table he craves – and that
he wouldn’t be content “just being a good soldier.”
26
At the same time, Lowder is sure that he won’t stay away from the political grind
for long.
“I’ve said a lot of times, ‘This is the last one,’ and it hasn’t been,” he said, a little
wiser with each failed promise to himself. “So I think I’m smart enough now to realize –
this probably isn’t the last campaign I work on.”
At the end of the current contest, Lowder said his goodbyes to the candidate
himself during Giuliani’s visit to the Reagan Library, the day he endorsed John McCain.
Good job, the former mayor said. We’re all family. We’re going to do this again
someday.
Lowder can’t say for sure whether Giuliani will, indeed, run again. “I think those
were probably words of comfort,” he said. “And I don’t think he knows for sure what
he’s going to do next.”
As the campaign comes to a halt, Lowder’s own future is uncertain, too. He could
start a business. He could go back to investment banking. He could join a public affairs
firm. But someday, another campaign is bound to come calling – and Lowder knows it
could be difficult to resist diving headlong into the grind once again.

27
Chapter: 5
Candidate: Barack Obama
State Director: Mitchell Schwartz

“The crowd was a mixed, diverse group of people, of ages, of ethnicities, of
all different types. And they were just captivated by the guy. And I realized
that he had something.”
– Mitchell Schwartz

Black and white, young and old, people were swaying back and forth to the
sounds of reggae records on a Saturday afternoon, sandwiched together inside a narrow
Wilshire Boulevard office suite.
“It’s hot in here!” a woman shouted as visitors bobbed their heads, fanning
themselves with “Obama ‘08” signs.
It was a party to mark the opening of Barack Obama’s Los Angeles headquarters,
a melting pot of campaign staff, volunteers, reporters and supporters, and California
campaign director Mitchell Schwartz was cranking up the heat, bringing the mélange to a
rolling, enthusiastic boil.
He was working the room in a black campaign T-shirt and jeans, nodding his head
full of dark, curly hair, shaking hands and learning names. No suit or tie that day, but
then again, he’s not really a suit-and-tie kind of guy. “Mr. Schwartz?” you’ll say,
extending your hand. “Mitchell,” he’ll correct you.
28
Smack in the middle of the campaign melting pot, Schwartz was in his element.
Good campaigns draw good people, Schwartz said, and meeting good people, true
believers who are truly passionate, is what it’s all about.
In the run-up to Feb. 5, Schwartz came to realize that the Obama staff and
volunteers were the right people, “people who believed for the right reasons.” But even
with a good campaign calling, it took some doing to get Schwartz on the Obama team.
As a self-described “seasoned, chiseled veteran of 47,” Schwartz was starting to
realize that presidential politics was a young person’s game. It’s hard work, he said. It’s
frustrating work. And even with the 2008 election approaching, the Queens-born
consultant knew he wasn’t a young man anymore.
“I had done presidential campaigns,” he said. “A lot of them.”
There was Walter Mondale in 1984. Michael Dukakis in 1988. Bill Clinton in
1992. Al Gore in 2000.
And, in 2008, Barack Obama.
“Every single time, he’s picked the right guy” – the right Democrat – “to work
for,” said Cole Frates, who worked alongside Schwartz in northern Wisconsin for Gore’s
presidential run.
Still, with the 2008 Democratic nomination still undecided – post-Iowa, post-New
Hampshire, post-Super Tuesday – Schwartz will have to wait, perhaps until June or later,
to see if his guy wins the nomination. He says he won’t do any more presidential
campaigns: “More than ever,” he feels they’re a young person’s domain.
29
As he wraps up his work for Obama, Schwartz is busy trying to secure new
superdelegate endorsements and preparing to seat California delegates, “a fairly laborious
process that somebody’s gotta do,” he said.
In the meantime, the focus has shifted away from California. Obama lost the state
primary to Hillary Clinton, despite a final pre-primary Field Poll showing him just 2
percent behind the New York senator.
On Feb. 5, he didn’t lose by two points; he lost by nine. And Schwartz had hoped
to do better, to come within five points, though absentee voters who cast their ballots
early for Clinton made it difficult.
“I care deeply, and I have an ego, and you want to win,” Schwartz said. “You
know, we spent six months working our tail off – I want to win. I didn’t want to come in
second or down by nine.”
But even a nine-point loss showed a comeback in the making, due partially to a
national trend and partially to the way the California campaign was run.
“In a state where he should have lost by 20,” Frates said, Obama didn’t.
For his part, Schwartz took a risk by not becoming the West-Coast cog in the
Clinton political machine. Schwartz chose to support Obama, “when nobody thought
Obama had a prayer,” Frates said, and when all of Schwartz’s friends were supporting
Clinton.
Among those friends was Ace Smith, a Bay Area-based political consultant
Schwartz met during Antonio Villaraigosa’s 2001 mayoral campaign in Los Angeles.
30
After working on the same team during the 2001 race, and again in 2005, the two
went head-to-head in 2008: As Schwartz led Obama’s California campaign, Smith was
doing the same for Hillary Clinton.
“He’s one of the best, if not the best in California,” Schwartz said of Smith,
insisting the two will stay friends beyond the current campaign. “So in a fun way, I feel
like I’m testing myself against the best – and I kind of like that.”
Schwartz was also testing his own loyalties. He has a history with Bill Clinton,
dating back to his days running his presidential campaign in New Hampshire in 1992.
After the election, he joined the Clinton administration.
Hillary Clinton is fine, Schwartz will tell you, but his loyalty to Bill is non-
transferable. “Her campaign, to me, would then be one of obligation,” he said.
“The campaign that I joined – I joined it because of inspiration,” he added,
referring to Obama’s operation.
That doesn’t mean that Schwartz isn’t a “Hillary fan.” A photograph on the wall
of his Bomaye Company office features the first lady in front of a Boyle Heights temple
in 1998. It was a trip Schwartz helped schedule for her as part of the White House
Millennium Program. “To Mitchell Schwartz, with appreciation,” it reads, signed Hillary
Rodham Clinton.
Schwartz is “just more of a Barack guy for president.” The first time Schwartz
saw Obama in person, it wasn’t even the Illinois senator’s soaring oratory that won him
over. Obama’s speech, delivered to thousands during a February rally in South Los
Angeles, was “OK,” he said.
31
Rather, the appeal was the human mix: It was the campaign melting pot all over
again.
“The crowd was a mixed, diverse group of people, of ages, of ethnicities, of all
different types,” Schwartz said. “And they were just captivated by the guy. And I realized
that he had something.”
Months later, as the head of Obama’s California operation, Schwartz capitalized
on that captivation, going beyond the direct mail and TV ad buys that are hallmarks of
the state’s primary politics.
Schwartz “was the first guy to be audacious enough since Bobby Kennedy to
organize precinct by precinct,” Frates said. Along with California field director Buffy
Wicks, Schwartz helped harness tens of thousands of volunteers and hundreds of Obama
fan groups, making the California campaign as much a war on the ground as it was a war
over the airwaves.
“You need a movement to supply the volunteers, and we had that,” Schwartz said.
It’s the grassroots approach, and it stands in stark contrast to what Schwartz called
Clinton’s “grass-tops” campaign.
Schwartz wasn’t sure it could work at first. “I didn’t think it was possible to get
that many people involved, based on past presidential campaigns,” he said. “But we
broke the mold with this one.”
It was a strategy that quickly started to make sense – no wonder, considering
Schwartz’s background. He’s always been someone who understands the need to stay
connected to one’s roots and the community.
32
“Barack is the same way,” said Lenny Stern, Schwartz’s college roommate and
campaign partner during the Democratic runs of Mondale, Dukakis and Clinton.
Both Obama and Schwartz show a desire to improve their communities. “‘Tikkun
olam,’” Schwartz will say, remembering a Hebrew saying that urges the Jewish faithful
to repair the world.
After years of campaign cycle after campaign cycle, Schwartz is a little wiser
about how much repairing politicians can do. “‘Wow, the world will be saved!’”
Schwartz used to think, with each new Democrat and each new election. “And they could
just do so much.”
Still, Schwartz believes Obama is his best bet for fixing a world that’s getting
worse and a culture that’s growing coarser – for making a change. “Not just a little
difference around the edges,” Schwartz said. “But a big difference.”
And by getting people involved in politics again, “tikkun olam” is starting to take
shape.
“The real repairing of the world will be when [Obama] is president and we can
start making some policies that have that impact,” Schwartz said. “But I do believe that
even by getting the people involved, we’ve started the process.”

33
Chapter: 6
Candidate: Mitt Romney
California Co-Chair: Dick Ackerman

“Look at the presidential primaries and see what things happened. You gotta
be prepared for anything.”
– Dick Ackerman

Give a man a phone, and he can make you thousands of dollars.
That’s what Dick Ackerman, the former California Senate minority leader with
the deep, basso voice, helped do for Mitt Romney’s presidential operation in the Golden
State.
One of three co-chairs working without pay for the former governor’s now-
suspended campaign, Sen. Ackerman was dialing numbers and making pitches, helping
Romney tap into the ATM known as “California” during the presidential primary cycle.
As then-head of California’s State Senate Republican Caucus and thus, head
fundraiser for every state Senate race, Ackerman knew what to bank on. After all, he
represents the 33
rd
State Senate District in Orange County, a deep pot of rich, Republican
influence amidst the state’s Democratic majority.
Romney had big-time donors like former eBay CEO Meg Whitman on his side,
but he had a lot of competition, too. Mike Huckabee had fundraisers in Orange County.
34
Fred Thompson did, too, along with almost every other Republican contender for the
presidential nomination.
This time around, though, California was more than a campaign moneymaker.
As one of the Super Tuesday states, California voted on Feb. 5, four months
earlier than last year, and Democrats and Republicans alike were fundraising here – and
campaigning.
Ackerman is a tanned, blue-eyed senator of 65 with a long political career on the
Fullerton City Council, and in the state Assembly and the state Senate. For the latest
Republican primary, he got to make more than just fundraising calls.
There were the endorsement calls – to his fellow senators, to state Assembly
members, to Giuliani supporters who needed a new candidate to support in a post-Florida
presidential contest.
There were the press calls, too. “Call Ackerman,” was the in-state media policy
for the Romney campaign. “‘Is McCain the inevitable winner now?’” reporters asked
him.
“That’s an easy one,” Ackerman said. “No.”
It turned out to be a harder question than Ackerman could have predicted. The
California state senator didn’t expect Romney to trump McCain by a landslide, but he
was surprised that his guy was soundly beaten.
Now, Romney’s campaign has lost, and in making sense of what happened,
Ackerman shows no love for the primary schedule – or the Iowa caucuses, for that
matter.
35
“The primary system, as you know, is a little convoluted,” he says. “This current
system is just a joke,” Ackerman says, and the caucus system is a disaster.
Iowa, he’ll tell you, is smaller than Orange County. New Hampshire is smaller
than Sacramento County. Yet the media machine seizes upon the political contests in
these early voting states, and then someone like Mike Huckabee gets the ‘”Iowa bump.”
Bad news for his conservative opponent, Mitt Romney.
With Romney’s bid for the White House finished, Ackerman’s Republicans are
working with the Republican National Committee, looking at proposals to change the
primary system.
It won’t be a pleasant process – the Democratic and Republican parties will have
to agree, and small states and large states are bound to argue about who votes first. Then
again, Ackerman isn’t one to shy away from a political brawl.
In 2007, the Senate Republicans, led by Ackerman himself, held up the budget for
months. “There was about two- or three-billion [dollars] out of whack,” Ackerman said.
His caucus pushed to cut extra spending to $1 billion, and then to $700 million. “You
have to do what you think is right,” he said of the dispute.
“There was a lot of tension and frustration,” said Chris Kahn, deputy chief of staff
and legislative secretary for Gov. Schwarzenegger. “But in my opinion, that’s when
Senator Ackerman is at his best. Because he understands that, eventually, the differences
will get worked out and there will be a solution.”
They did, and there was, but Ackerman was criticized for his unwillingness to
compromise. “You get to take the heat for the whole [Republican] caucus, but that’s
fine,” the senator said. “That’s just part of the job.”
36
Ackerman, commodore of the Fullerton Yacht Club, is used to navigating rough
waters. He’s had to stay afloat in California’s Democrat-heavy political world, a “red”
senator in a sea of blue.
Said Chuck Poochigian, a former state legislator who worked with the senator in
both the Assembly and the Senate, Ackerman is a man who can keep “cordial
relationships with people who have a very different view.”
It’s something Ackerman saw in Mitt Romney, too. The former Massachusetts
governor has “conservative credentials,” Ackerman said, and he’s also had “a good
political career in a very liberal state.”
In the end, Ackerman knows that politics is all about relationships.
It’s a political give-and-take. And as Romney’s California director, Duane
Dichiara, could attest, Orange County – and Ackerman himself – are important parts of
the process.
Ackerman stumped for Romney, raised money for Romney, translated his
political influence into votes for Romney, and in turn, a President Romney could have
helped do the same for Ackerman and his Republican colleagues.
“If the president happens to be a Republican president, that would certainly help
our Republican candidates,” Ackerman said.
The stakes are high: He’s helping the party prepare for three state Senate races
coming up this year – Tony Strickland in Ventura, Greg Aghazarian in Stockton and Abel
Maldonado in San Luis Obispo.
37
As for the Romney campaign, the state senator said he wasn’t motivated by the
prospect of a job in the administration. He would rather live in California, and as a sun-
loving, tried-and-true sailing man, he’s more of a warm-weather person, anyway.
He’ll get involved with the John McCain campaign – after all, he still wants a
Republican president – but not without a few promises.
“He’s going to have to give us some assurances that he’s going to be following
Republican principles,” Ackerman said, criticizing McCain’s “liberal” positions on
certain issues.
Ackerman’s own time in state Senate politics is almost up; he’ll be termed-out by
the end of the year. He’s been asked what his future aspirations are.
“Surviving,” he’ll say. His wife has told him he has to work until he dies.
But with the lessons and defeats of Super Tuesday behind him, Ackerman isn’t
quite sure what this work will be. “You never know,” he said, pointing to the experience
of the presidential primaries. “You gotta be prepared for anything.”

38
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ackerman, Dick. Personal interview. 1 February 2008.

Ackerman, Dick. Phone interview. 11 January 2008.

Ackerman, Dick. Phone interview. 8 February 2008.

Ayres, Jim. Phone interview. 5 December 2007.

Beach, Eric. Phone interview. 8 January 2008.

Clegg, Sean. Phone interview. 10 January 2008.

Coffey, Debbie. Phone interview. 8 December 2007.

Delano, Donna. Phone interview. 5 December 2007.

Dichiara, Duane. Phone interview. 25 January 2008.

Ernsdorf, Emily. Phone interview. 9 January 2008.

Frates, Cole. Phone interview. 7 February 2008.

Kahn, Chris. Phone interview. 31 January 2008.

Lehane, Chris. Phone interview. 10 January 2008.

Lowder, Brent. Personal interview. 20 November 2007.

Lowder, Brent. Phone interview. 20 February 2008.

Lowder, Brent. Phone interview. 21 December 2007.

Lowder, Brent. Phone interview. 6 February 2008.

Mancini, Maria. Phone interview. 10 December 2007.

Martin, Mather. Phone interview. 10 January 2008.

Newman, Dan. Phone interview. 11 January 2008.

Olson, Nicole. Phone interview. 8 December 2007.

Owen, Jodi. Phone interview. 10 December 2007.
39

Pitkin, J. Allen. Phone interview. 8 January 2008.

Poochigian, Chuck. Phone interview. 29 January 2008.

Richman, Mike. Personal interview. 11 October 2007.

Richman, Mike. Personal interview. 8 November 2007.

Richman, Mike. Phone interview. 24 January 2008.

Rios, Richard. Phone interview. 5 December 2007.

Schwartz, Mitchell. Personal interview. 27 February 2008.

Schwartz, Mitchell. Phone interview. 22 December 2007.

Seguin, Greg. Phone interview. 8 December 2007.

Seguin, Noelle. Personal interview. 17 November 2007.

Seguin, Noelle. Personal interview. 30 January 2008.

Seguin, Noelle. Personal interview. 8 November 2007.

Seguin, Noelle. Phone interview. 29 February 2008.

Simon, Bill. Phone interview. 11 January 2008.

Smith, Ace. Personal interview. 16 October 2007.

Smith, Ace. Personal interview. 17 November 2007.

Smith, Ace. Phone interview. 24 February 2008.

Soboroff, Steve. Phone interview. 8 January 2008.

Steel, Michelle. E-mail interview. 12 December 2007.

Stern, Lenny. Phone interview. 25 January 2008.

Strom, Joel. Phone interview. 9 January 2008.

Walker, Beth. Phone interview. 10 December 2007.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Political campaigns run on a mix of money, energy and strategy, but people are the key ingredient. The consultants, the state chairs, the grassroots volunteers

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Price, Amanda Ruth (author)

Core Title Campaign confidantes: six perspectives on California's 2008 presidential primary

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Journalism (Print Journalism)

Publication Date 04/18/2010

Defense Date 04/01/2008

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag campaign,election,OAI-PMH Harvest,Politics

Place Name California (states), USA (countries)

Language English

Advisor Nelson, Bryce (committee chair), Berger, Bob (committee member), Jeffe, Sherry Bebitch (committee member)

Creator Email amandapr@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m1148

Unique identifier UC1107940

Identifier etd-Price-20080418 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-59938 (legacy record id),usctheses-m1148 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Price-20080418.pdf

Dmrecord 59938

Document Type Thesis

Rights Price, Amanda Ruth

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu