Samuel Graham-Felsen is an American blogger and journalist who was the blog director of the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in 2008. [1]
Graham-Felsen grew up in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended Boston public schools, including the William Monroe Trotter school and Boston Latin School. He graduated cum laude from Harvard University in 2004 with a degree in social studies. He was a writer and columnist for The Harvard Crimson , the daily student newspaper of the university. [2]
From 2004 to 2007, he worked for The Nation magazine, covering youth politics. He also produced videos for Current TV, filing reports from France, Cambodia, and Pakistan. [3] [4]
From 2008 to 2009 he was content director at Blue State Digital, a Washington, D.C.-based Internet strategy and technology firm. He is currently a featured speaker for the American Program Bureau and travels worldwide covering his experience with the Obama campaign and other new media campaigns. [5]
His debut, coming-of-age novel, Green, was published in January, 2018, by Random House. A tale of growing up in Boston as one of few white students in a predominantly Black and Hispanic middle school, his book received praise from The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and the New Yorker, which called it,“A coming-of-age tale of uncommon sweetness and feeling.”
Graham-Felsen was a member of the presidential campaign staff of Barack Obama in 2008. As the blog director of the New Media committee, he wrote for and oversaw BarackObama.com/blog, worked with key national and state bloggers to promote the campaign's message, helped direct the campaign's online rapid response operation, and produced and collaborated on dozens of online videos for the campaign. [6]
Lawrence Henry Summers is an American economist who served as the 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001 and as director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010. He also served as president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006, where he is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School. In November 2023, Summers joined the board of directors of artificial general intelligence company OpenAI.
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, often known by his username and former military nickname "Kos", is an American blogger who is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos, a blog focusing on liberal and Democratic Party politics in the United States. He co-founded SB Nation, a collection of sports blogs, which is now a part of Vox Media.
MyDD was the first large collaborative politically progressive American politics blog. It was established by Jerome Armstrong in 2001. Its name was originally short for "My Due Diligence." In 2005, MyDD was profiled in Campaigns and Elections magazine, crediting the site with being "the first major liberal blog." In January 2006, the name was changed to "My Direct Democracy" as part of a site redesign, with the new tagline "Direct Democracy for People-Powered Politics."
Andy Carvin is an American blogger and a former senior product manager for online communities at National Public Radio (NPR). Carvin was the founding editor and former coordinator of the Digital Divide Network. He is a field correspondent for the vlog Rocketboom.
On February 10, 2007, Barack Obama, then-junior United States senator from Illinois, announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in Springfield, Illinois. Obama announced his candidacy at the Old State Capitol building, where Abraham Lincoln had delivered his "House Divided" speech. Obama was the main challenger, along with John Edwards, to front-runner Hillary Clinton for much of 2007. He had only recently emerged as a national figure in Democratic politics, having delivered the DNC keynote address just three years prior and won his Senate election shortly thereafter.
This article lists the endorsements made by members of the 110th United States Congress for candidates for their party's nominations in the 2008 United States presidential election. All of the Democratic members of Congress are also superdelegates to their party's presidential nominating convention, except for those from Florida and Michigan. For further details of superdelegates and their voting intentions see List of superdelegates at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. This page lists congressional endorsements, which are distinct from superdelegates' intentions to vote.
Nedra J. Pickler is an American national political journalist formerly employed by the Associated Press. She resigned from the AP in 2015 to work as a managing director at The Glover Park Group, which later merged with two other firms to become Finsbury Glover Hering.
Jeffrey B. Liebman is an American economist and academic. Since 2014, Liebman has served as director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard Kennedy School.
The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) was a political lobbying organization that advocated within the Democratic Party for viewpoints aligned with the American Jewish community and in support of the state of Israel, and within the political process generally, between 1990 and about 2016.
Robert Lane Gibbs is an American communication professional who served as executive vice president and global chief communications officer of McDonald's from 2015 to 2019 and as the 27th White House Press Secretary from 2009 to 2011.
Macon Phillips is an American political strategist who served as the Coordinator of the United States Department of State Bureau of International Information Programs from 2013 to 2017. He reported to Rick Stengel, the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Phillips is the former White House Director of New Media, in which capacity he had oversight responsibility for WhiteHouse.gov.
Matthew Winthrop Barzun is an American businessman, diplomat and political fundraiser who served as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. He is a business executive who is known for his work with CNET Networks and for his fundraising work on Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. He served as United States Ambassador to Sweden from 2009 to 2011. He was selected by President Barack Obama as National Finance Chair for the president's 2012 re-election campaign. He is author of The Power of Giving Away Power from Optimism Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Jesse Lee was named the White House Director of Progressive Media & Online Response on May 23, 2011. This was a newly created position to help maintain Barack Obama’s online presence for his 2012 Presidential reelection bid. The duties of this position, dealing with negative or factually incorrect stories about the President, was formerly handled by the Democratic National Committee's rapid response team. Lee’s first tweet about his new position included a picture of The Terminator.
David B. Wilkins is an American legal scholar who is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law and faculty director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. He is a senior research fellow of the American Bar Foundation, the Harvard Law School's vice dean for global initiatives on the legal profession, and a faculty associate of the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics.
Juan Verde Suárez is a Spanish business and social entrepreneur who assisted the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign, as well as earlier campaigns of prominent Democrats such as President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Senator John Kerry, and Senator Ted Kennedy. He is currently a member of the President's Export Council, an advisory body to the White House on international trade and U.S. competitiveness in international markets, under President Biden.
Blue State Digital is an adtech that specializes in online fundraising, and campaign consultancy. The company was founded by 4 former staffers of the Howard Dean 2004 presidential campaign. The company became notable after providing digital strategy and technology services for the 2008 and 2012 Barack Obama presidential campaigns.
Joshua Ryan Henry Earnest is an American political advisor who served as White House press secretary under President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2017. He was Obama's third Press Secretary and the 29th to hold the position. He succeeded Jay Carney as Obama's press secretary, in 2014, and was succeeded by President Donald Trump's first presidential press secretary, Sean Spicer. He is Executive Vice President of Communications and Advertising for United Airlines.
The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy is a Harvard Kennedy School research center that explores the intersection and impact of media, politics and public policy in theory and practice.
Tom Cochran is a former Obama Administration appointee, having served both in the White House and Department of State between 2011 and 2016. He is a partner and the Chief Growth Officer at 720 Strategies, as well as a keynote speaker, writer, and adjunct professor at American University.