2019 Inside American Politics: Athens

John Anzalone is the founder of ALG Research, a nationally recognized public opinion polling firm celebrating its 25^th year in business.  John is considered one of the Democratic Party’s top strategists and is currently working on his fourth straight presidential campaign as pollster for Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential bid. He previously polled for both President Barack Obama (2008 & 2012) and Hillary Clinton (2016).  

In 2018, he helped elect new Governors in Michigan (Gretchen Whitmer) and Nevada (Steve Sisolak). In 2016, he polled for North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and the fight against the state’s anti-LGBT laws, and is polling in 2019 to help re-elect Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards. During the 2018 midterms, John’s firm helped flip five GOP congressional seats and helped elect Kyrsten Sinema to the Senate in Arizona.

In the last two decades, John and his firm have helped beat more incumbent Republicans and take back more Republican seats than any other polling firm in the nation. ALG Research works regularly with the DGA, DSCC, and DCCC, as well as with the Human Rights Campaign, Emily’s List, The Hub and Planned Parenthood. John has also helped Fortune 500 companies with strategic messaging.

Prior to his polling career, Anzalone was a campaign operative and one of the first staffers in Iowa for Joe Biden for President in 1987.  He also worked for democratic strategists James Carville in U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg’s 1988 campaign. He began his political career as an aide to David Wilhelm (who later became DNC Chairman) at Citizens for Tax Justice and the AFL-CIO, and then went on to manage campaigns in five states.

Joel Benenson, founder and CEO of Benenson Strategy Group, is the only Democratic pollster in history to have played a leading role in three winning presidential campaigns — making him the “go-to guy for any politico wanting to take the public’s temperature,” according to GQ. 

Joel was the chief pollster and a senior strategist for President Obama in both of his campaigns, which he won with over 50% of the popular vote, making him only the seventh president in history to be elected and reelected with more than 50%. He was also on the polling team for President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign and he was the chief pollster and senior strategist for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. 

Since founding the firm in 2000, Joel has served as a strategist and consultant to heads of state, domestic political leaders at all levels, Fortune 100 CEOs, and leaders of major advocacy and nonprofit institutions. His unique combination of communications expertise and astute analysis has led clients across sectors to win in the most challenging competitive situations. Joel was named “Pollster of the Year by the by the American Association of Political Consultants, among the “most powerful” people in D.C. by GQ magazine, and a part of “the new lineup in Washington” by Newsweek magazine. Joel’s corporate clients have included CEOs and top executives at Campbell Soup Company, HBO, Toyota, the NFL, Procter & Gamble, Panera Bread Co., and MSNBC. In the advocacy and nonprofit sector, he has worked with leading institutions including The Fairness Project, Story Corps. AARP, League of Conservation Voters and SEIU. Before becoming a pollster in 1995, Joel was a political journalist for the Daily News in New York and served as communications director for Governor Mario Cuomo’s 1994 campaign. He was also previously a vice president at the New York ad agency FCB.

Lisa Benenson is the Vice President for Communications and Strategy at the Brennan Center for Justice. She serves on the organization’s executive management team, and leads communications strategies and initiatives, marketing and brand, and digital presence.

She was previously the Deputy Director of Communications for UNICEF’s global operations, leading the organizations media, digital and internal communications teams, and served as the Chief Communications Officer for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Before embarking on her career in non-profits, Benenson was a journalist. She was a consulting editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast; the founding editor of Hallmark Magazine, and the editorial director at Working Mother and Working Woman magazines. At Hallmark, she played a key role in shaping business strategies to leverage the Hallmark brand and developed and supervised the magazine’s digital and social media operations. At Working Mother, she created the “Take Your Kids to Vote” campaign, a joint initiative with the Council for Excellence in Government.

Earlier in her journalism career, Benenson worked for Newsday, where she was a reporter and served as the Assistant National Editor, and for The Denver Post, where she held positions including Metro Editor and Sunday Editor.

Benenson has appeared on NBC’s Today Show and was a contributor for the Weekend Today Show. She has also appeared on NBC Nightly News, the CBS Evening News, Oprah, Good Morning America, The Fox Report and other national broadcast programs.

She is a board member at Polaris, a leading nonprofit in the fight to eradicate modern slavery, and at Riverkeeper, a New York organization that defends the Hudson River and its tributaries, protecting the drinking water supply of 9 million New Yorkers.

Lynne P. Brown, Ph.D., is NYU’s Senior Vice President for University Relations and Public Affairs. In that position, Dr. Brown is responsible for the University’s government relations, strategic communications, and university events. A political scientist by training, Dr. Brown received her B.A. from Smith College, where she was elected Phi Beta Kappa, and went on to receive her Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University. At NYU, she taught a graduate seminar on the politics of higher education for twenty years. She is a frequent speaker on national politics, trends in higher education, and leadership strategies. Before coming to NYU, Dr. Brown worked on Capitol Hill for Congressman (and now NYU President Emeritus) John Brademas and Congressman Thomas S. Foley during their tenures as Majority Whips in the House of Representatives. A native New Yorker, Dr. Brown serves on a number of civic boards, including the Union Square Partnership, New York Building Congress, and VillageCare.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jonathan Capehart is an opinion writer for and a member of The Washington Post editorial board. He also hosts the “Cape Up” podcast at the paper and is an MSNBC Contributor, who regularly serves as a substitute anchor, and was the host of “America on the Line,” a 10-week daily news and national call-in show about the 2018 midterm elections from WNYC New York Public Radio. He was a Spring 2019 Fellow at the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Policy. 

Capehart is a regular moderator of panels at the Aspen Ideas Festival and for the Aspen Institute, the Center for American Progress and at the Brussels Forum of the German Marshall Fund. He has also moderated sessions and conversations at the Atlantic’s Washington Ideas Forum, the 92nd Street Y and for the Connecticut Forum.  

Capehart was deputy editorial page editor of the New York Daily News from 2002 to 2004, and served on that paper's editorial board from 1993 to 2000. In 1999, his 16-month editorial campaign to save the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem earned him and the board the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing. Capehart left the Daily News in July 2000 to become the national affairs columnist at Bloomberg News, and took a leave from this position in February 2001 to serve as a policy adviser to Michael Bloomberg in his first successful campaign for New York City mayor. 

Rob Collins is a veteran strategist and partner at S-3 Public Affairs. In the Spring of 2017, the Trump Administration asked Collins to ‘quarterback’ the successful bipartisan nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court. In that role, Collins worked directly with West Wing senior staff, the Office of the Vice President, the White House Counsel, the Department of Justice, the White House Office of Legislative Policy, Legislative Affairs, the Inter-governmental Office, the White House Public Liaison Office, and the White House Communications Office. Additionally, Collins worked closely with Senate Leadership, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office, the Senate Judiciary Committee, over 20 outside advocacy groups, and Judge Gorsuch’s team.

Prior to S-3, Collins was the Executive Director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), a $125 million, 80-person organization responsible for electing Republicans to the U.S. Senate. During his tenure at the NRSC he helped reelect 12 incumbents and elect 12 new Republicans. These pickups were a part of a historic 9-seat gain for the Republicans, the largest GOP-gain in over 35 years.

Before taking over at the NRSC, Collins was a partner at Purple Strategies, a bipartisan consulting firm. He also ran the American Action Network (AAN), which raised over $30 million for advocacy in 5 Senate races and 35 House districts that helped the Republicans retake the House of Representatives in 2010. While at AAN, he created the Hispanic Leadership Network co-chaired by Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. Before starting the Network, Collins spent 7 years as Chief of Staff for Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). Collins has been chosen by Roll Call Newspaper as a member of the ‘Fab 50 Staffers in DC’ 4-times, twice he has been selected to be on the ‘Power 100’ by Washingtonian Magazine and Recently Fortune Magazine cited him as the ‘Top Strategist’ for Republicans in 2016.

Patrick J. Egan specializes in U.S. political attitudes and behavior, and their consequences for public policy, partisanship and identity. He is an author of “Partisan Priorities: How Issue Ownership Drives and Distorts American Politics”, and his peer-reviewed research has appeared in journals such as Nature, the American Political Science Review, and the Journal of Politics. He is the recipient of the NYU Golden Dozen Award in recognition for his outstanding contribution to learning in the classroom.  Egan holds a Ph.D. in political science from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School. Before entering academia, he served as an Assistant Deputy Mayor of Policy and Planning in the office of  Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell. For the past few election cycles, he has worked as an elections analyst for NBC News as part of the network's Exit Poll Desk team.

Elise Jordan is a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC and a contributor to TIME. Elise is an advisor to the Ashcroft in America research project studying voter attitudes during the midterm elections. She was a policy advisor to Senator Rand Paul’s 2016 presidential campaign. During the Bush administration, Elise worked in the White House Office of Presidential Speechwriting and at the State Department as a speechwriter and advisor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In 2007, she joined the National Security Council, where she worked on press and communications strategy for the administration’s Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan policies. While at the White House, Elise worked for extended periods at the U.S. Embassy Baghdad and the Commanding General’s Strategic Advisory Group at the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan. She was born and raised in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and is a graduate of Yale University. Elise, her husband Mike Hogan, and her Corgi Bobby Sneakers live in New York City.

Betsy Fischer Martin is an Emmy-winning journalist and former TV news executive. Currently she is the Executive Director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University and teaches courses on campaigns and elections in AU’s School of Public Affairs. She also founded her own consulting business, Fischer Martin Media, where she specializes in providing media training to corporate executives. During the 2016 presidential campaign cycle, she was a contributor to Bloomberg Politics where she co-hosted “Masters in Politics” - a political podcast featuring interviews with presidential candidates, government officials and key strategists. She was also the Contributing Editor for Washington for MORE Magazine where she interviewed female political leaders about policy issues, women’s empowerment and leadership. Additionally, she traveled abroad extensively on behalf of the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs, speaking to foreign journalists, students and political/civic organizations as an independent expert on U.S. elections, women in politics and women in media. During her earlier career in television news, she spent 23 years at NBC News serving as the longtime Executive Producer of Meet the Press with Tim Russert and as the Managing Editor of NBC News Political Programming. A native of New Orleans, Fischer Martin did her undergraduate and graduate work at American University in Washington, DC. She is a cum laude graduate of their School of Public Affairs and earned a master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from the AU School of Communication.

Jonathan Martin is a national political correspondent for The New York Times. Before joining The Times, he had served as senior political writer for Politico since its inception in 2007. He began covering politics for National Journal’s political publication, The Hotline, and then reported on party politics and the aftermath of the 2006 midterm elections for National Review magazine. Mr. Martin is a co-author of the New York Times best seller “The End of the Line: Romney vs. Obama: The 34 Days That Decided the Election” (December 2012), the fourth and final e-book in Politico’s 2012 series on the race for the presidency. His work has been published in The New Republic, National Journal, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He is a CNN political analyst.

Catherine “Kiki” McLean is a leading public affairs and political strategist. She is the director of the Walton Family Political and Communications Office. Previously, she served as counsel for the Washington, D.C., office of Porter Novelli and the agency’s global public affairs efforts. She assumed this role after four years leading the Washington, D.C., and global public affairs practices and serving as a member of Porter Novelli’s Executive Committee. In her work, Kiki’s expertise is in strategic communications and public affairs. A veteran of six presidential campaigns, including the historic 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, Kiki has more than 25 years of experience leading strategic communications initiatives. She served as senior advisor to the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign in 2008, and has served as spokesperson and led communications for Vice President Al Gore, Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democratic National Committee and others. Kiki McLean is a native of San Antonio, Texas, and received her Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree in Communications from Austin College in Sherman, Texas. She serves on several not-for-profit and corporate boards of directors.

Steve McMahon is an attorney and co-founder of Purple Strategies, LLC, a firm that applies politically-inspired solutions to corporate reputation and business challenges. He’s advised Senators, Governors, CEOs and presidential candidates on political and communications strategies for over thirty years. McMahon began his professional career working on the Senate and political staff of Senator Edward M.Kennedy, where he served as Assistant Press Secretary and later, as Deputy Director of Kennedy’s PAC, the Fund for a Democratic Majority. McMahon began working as a political strategist and media consultant in 1987, and has worked on dozens of Senate, Gubernatorial and Mayoral campaigns across the country. McMahon worked in the U.S. presidential campaigns of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, served as senior political strategist and media consultant for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, and produced the advertising in support of then Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic National Committee in the 2008 presidential campaign. He's also produced issue advertising for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). On the international front, McMahon and his partners worked as strategic advisors or campaign consultants on successful presidential campaigns in Nicaragua for Violetto Chamarro and in Greece for Andreas Papandreaou. For the past decade, McMahon’s principal focus has been on providing comprehensive reputation, brand image, crisis, and issue advocacy campaigns to companies and industries operating in challenging environments. Their clients have included many of the best-known brands in the world, including McDonald’s, BP and Coca-Cola.  For the past several political cycles, Steve has appeared regularly as a Democratic Strategist on MSNBC and other political programming. Steve is married to Cynthia Alksne, a former federal prosecutor and current MSNBC legal analyst. Steve and Cynthia are the proud parents of four daughters.

When he was elected Lt. Governor of Maryland in 2003, Michael Steele made history as the first African American elected to statewide office; and again with his subsequent chairmanship of the Republican National Committee in 2009. As chairman of the RNC, Michael Steele was charged with revitalizing the Republican Party. A self-described "Lincoln Republican," under Steele’s leadership the RNC broke fundraising records (over $198 million raised during the 2010 Congressional cycle) and Republicans won 63 House seats, the biggest pickup since 1938. His commitment to grassroots organization and party building at the state and local levels produced 12 governorships and the greatest share of state legislative seats since 1928 (over 760 seats). As Lt. Governor of Maryland, Mr. Steele’s priorities included reforming the state's Minority Business Enterprise program, improving the quality of Maryland's public education system (he championed the State’s historic Charter School law), expanding economic development in the state and fostering cooperation between government and faith-based organizations to help those in need. 

Mr. Steele’s ability as a communicator and commentator has been showcased through his current role as a political analyst for MSNBC. He has appeared on Meet the Press, Face the Nation, HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, and Comedy Central's The Daily Show. In addition to his work in television, Mr. Steele co-hosted the daily radio program, Steele & Ungar on the POTUS Channel on SiriusXM and is the host of the podcast The Michael Steele Podcast.

Mr. Steele’s writings on law, business and politics have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Hill.com, The Grio.com, Politico.com, The Root.com, BET.com, Townhall.com, The Journal of International Security Affairs and Catholic University Law Review, among others. 

He is the author of Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda, which is a call to arms for grassroots America and co-author of The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis. 

Born at Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George’s County, Maryland, Mr. Steele was raised in Washington, DC. Upon graduating Johns Hopkins University (‘81’), he entered the Order of St. Augustine where studied for the priesthood. He is a graduate of Georgetown Law Center (’91), an Aspen Institute Rodel Fellow in Public Leadership, a University of Chicago Institute of Politics Fellow and currently a Senior Fellow at Brown University’s Institute for International and Public Affairs.

Doug joined SKDK in 2011 and has served as a media strategist to House, Senate and Gubernatorial campaigns and progressive and civil rights organizations. Over his 19-year career, Doug has been a lead media strategist to the Democratic National Committee, the top spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a senior aide at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, a top advisor to both Senator Chris Van Hollen and the Congressional Black Caucus as well as the traveling spokesman for Governor Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign.

Doug was a top House Democratic leadership aide from 2007 until 2011 and played a key role in the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Wall Street reform and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Doug began his political career as an organizer on the Gore Iowa campaign.  Following the 2000 election, Doug worked as a press aide to Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. PRWeek said this about Doug, “when it comes to the public affairs sphere, Doug Thornell knows the Beltway like few others.” Doug resides in Maryland and graduated from Cornell University where he played varsity football and earned a degree in government.

Yanoula Athanassakis is Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Co-founder of the NYU Environmental Humanities Series at New York University, and Instructor in English and Environmental Studies. Her research and teaching interests include American literature, the environmental humanities, animal studies, food studies, race and ethnic studies, gender studies, globalization, and environmental justice. Athanassakis’ book (2017), Environmental Justice in Contemporary U.S. Narratives is part of Routledge’s Environmental Humanities series. She teaches courses on US literature, veganism, environmental justice, and animal studies.

Tom works to identify public programming opportunities for the Washington, DC site. He seeks out and manages VIP speakers, links programs to academic initiatives at NYU, builds audiences, and connects events to other NYU global sites. In addition, he initiates and facilitates the participation of national experts and scholars, policymakers, professionals and entrepreneurs in both classroom lectures and special program events. Coordinating with other NYU administrators and faculty, he creates and maintains a robust program and event schedule including symposium, speaker series, lectures, and extra-curricular programming. Tom oversees the NYU DC internship program by managing the relationships with the internship providers and ensuring placements for NYU students. He works with the Assistant Vice President for Government Affairs on State Department and Embassy initiatives in Washington, DC and abroad in order to ensure that technical issues such as visas are addressed and programmatic possibilities are explored. He is the founder and director of NYU Washington, DC's DC Dialogues program.

Tom is also the Deputy Director of Programming and Outreach at New York University’s John Brademas Center where he oversees the Center’s program agenda, acts as the Congressional liaison and coordinates its Congressional Internship Program. Recently, collaborating with other Congressional centers, he has created The Young Leaders Network, connecting today’s young leaders to established policymakers, experts and mentors in Washington, DC.

Prior to joining the Brademas Center, he acted as the office administrator for New York University’s office of government and community affairs. From 1999 until 2004, Tom worked in the U.S. Senate for Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD), and was the Senator’s Director of Correspondence. Tom received his B.A. from The Catholic University of America with minors in Philosophy and Religious Studies and earned his Masters of Public Administration with a specialization in management of public and nonprofit organizations from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.

Steve McMahon is an attorney and co-founder of Purple Strategies, LLC, a firm that applies politically-inspired solutions to corporate reputation and business challenges. He’s advised Senators, Governors, CEOs and presidential candidates on political and communications strategies for over thirty years. McMahon began his professional career working on the Senate and political staff of Senator Edward M.Kennedy, where he served as Assistant Press Secretary and later, as Deputy Director of Kennedy’s PAC, the Fund for a Democratic Majority. McMahon began working as a political strategist and media consultant in 1987, and has worked on dozens of Senate, Gubernatorial and Mayoral campaigns across the country. McMahon worked in the U.S. presidential campaigns of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, served as senior political strategist and media consultant for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, and produced the advertising in support of then Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic National Committee in the 2008 presidential campaign. He's also produced issue advertising for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). On the international front, McMahon and his partners worked as strategic advisors or campaign consultants on successful presidential campaigns in Nicaragua for Violetto Chamarro and in Greece for Andreas Papandreaou. For the past decade, McMahon’s principal focus has been on providing comprehensive reputation, brand image, crisis, and issue advocacy campaigns to companies and industries operating in challenging environments. Their clients have included many of the best-known brands in the world, including McDonald’s, BP and Coca-Cola.  For the past several political cycles, Steve has appeared regularly as a Democratic Strategist on MSNBC and other political programming. Steve is married to Cynthia Alksne, a former federal prosecutor and current MSNBC legal analyst. Steve and Cynthia are the proud parents of four daughters.

Ellyn Toscano is Senior Director of Programing, Partnerships and Community Engagement for NYU in Brooklyn and former Executive Director of New York University Florence. She is the founder of La Pietra Dialogues and the founding producer of The Season, a summer arts festival in Florence, Italy. Before arriving at New York University Florence, Ms. Toscano served as Chief of Staff and Counsel to Congressman Jose Serrano of New York, was his chief policy advisor on legislative, political and media concerns and directed his work on the Appropriations Committee. Ms. Toscano also served as counsel to the New York State Assembly Committee on Education for nine years, and is a commissioner on the New York City Commission on Gender Equity. She is a member of the Board of the Harbor Conservancy, New York, Honorary Board of the Museo Marino Marini in Florence, Italy; the Advisory Board of the John Brademas Center, New York; the Italian Advisory Council of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Umbertide, Italy; and the Comitato Promotore of the Festival degli Scrittori and the Premio Gregor von Rezzori, Santa Maddalena Foundation, Donnini, Italy. Previously, she served on the boards of The Bronx Museum of the Arts and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (as the representative of the Brooklyn Borough President), and on the board of trustees of the International School of Florence, Italy. A lawyer by training, Ms.Toscano earned an LLM in International Law from New York University School of Law.