Rumored Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, left, speaks at EMILY's List event.
If you look at the twittersphere this morning, lots of people are screaming "Hillary Clinton dumps Mark Penn!" And sure, that's a happy thought and all, but Clinton dumped Penn years ago. He's been busy breaking Microsoft since July 2012 as their Vice President for Strategic and Special Projects.
But today's actual news is just as good.
Hillary Clinton is beginning to put together the pieces for a likely campaign, tapping two top strategists — including President Barack Obama’s pollster — to work with her in the lead-up toward an ultimate decision.
Robby Mook, who worked on Clinton’s 2008 campaign and is widely expected to be Clinton’s campaign manager, and Joel Benenson, Obama’s pollster who had for months been eyed for a role on her team, have been working with her as she makes a final decision and begins to put together a framework for a staff, according to people close to the former Secretary of State.
Benenson proved his worth with Obama, so he's a solid choice. But the hire that excites me is Robby Mook, last seen guiding Terry McAuliffe to victory in his gubernatorial race in the tough off-year elections of 2013. Indeed, that was the first time the party occupying the White House won Virginia since 1973, and excitedly—he did so by running an explicitly liberal campaign.
Note that this is Virginia, and Democrats were wedded to the idea that they had to run Mark Warner-style campaigns to win, wooing downstate white rural voters with gimmicks like NASCAR sponsorships and the like. But Mook ignored such advice and focused on a base mobilization strategy, working hard to excite, motivate, and turnout core supporters (younger, browner, more educated) in the DC suburbs of northern Virginia.
The race was neck and neck the entire cycle, but Mook proved the value of his strategy when those NoVa Democrats turned out for McAuliffe on Election Day, dealing him a 2.5-point victory. Amazingly, African-American turnout matched that of 2012, with President Barack Obama on the ballot. It was a triumph for the strategy we've long advocated here: there are more of us than there are of them, so if we turn out, we win. Mook made sure to give our people a reason to vote, they did, and we won.
Compare that to Virginia Sen. Mark Warner last year. The popular incumbent led in the polls by double-digits the entire cycle. He stuck to his tried and true playbook of ignoring his base while trying to win brownie points with those Confederate flag-waving assholes downstate. Then Election Day rolled around and what happened? Those uninspired core Democratic base voters in NoVa stayed home, and Warner had the scare of his life—winning by the thinnest of margins 49.15-48.34, less than a percentage point. (Ironically, his margin of victory came from where? NoVa.)
Funny thing is, Warner is actually likeable. McAuliffe is not. Yet by giving liberals a reason to vote, Mook delivered a virtual landslide in a year that Democrats should've been spanked.
Of course, a campaign manager isn't a dictator, and Hillary Clinton and her circle may very well decide to do things differently. But hopefully they picked up Mook precisely because of what he did in Virginia, and more importantly, how he did it.
We know the Clintons are tight with McAuliffe, so let's hope they're all sharing the right lessons: There are more of us than there are of them, and if Clinton gives base liberals a reason to get excited and work hard for her and the rest of the Democratic ticket, there's absolutely nothing Jeb or any of the other asshats in the GOP can do to stand in the way of her swearing-in ceremony.