The hiring was announced in an email to clients that was also forwarded to a few reporters.

Zeff is a talented guy and since the end of the presidential campaign, I - and many others - have been quietly wondering where he would land.

BerlinRosen's clients include the Working Families Party, which endorsed Bill de Blasio for public advocate, Richard Aborn for Manhattan D.A., Julissa Ferreras, Jimmy van Brammer and Brad Lander, who are running for City Council.

Here's the announcement:

Hi there-

Wanted to take a minute to let you know about the newest member of the BerlinRosen team.

Blake Zeff joins BerlinRosen Public Affairs as a senior member of our strategic communications practice having just come off two years on the presidential campaign trail – first as a national spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and later as the New York Communication’s Director for the Obama campaign. Prior to the 2008 election cycle Blake served as Communications Director to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and the New York State Democratic Party.

Blake brings to BerlinRosen a deep understanding of what makes and shapes the news and a tremendous background managing the intersection of politics, government and the news media at the local, state and national level.

He’s also an all around good guy.

]]> Blake Zeff, who worked under Howard Wolfson on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and, before that, at the New York State Democratic Party, has been hired by the consulting firm BerlinRosen.

The hiring was announced in an email to clients that was also forwarded to a few reporters.

Zeff is a talented guy and since the end of the presidential campaign, I - and many others - have been quietly wondering where he would land.

BerlinRosen's clients include the Working Families Party, which endorsed Bill de Blasio for public advocate, Richard Aborn for Manhattan D.A., Julissa Ferreras, Jimmy van Brammer and Brad Lander, who are running for City Council.

Here's the announcement:

Hi there-

Wanted to take a minute to let you know about the newest member of the BerlinRosen team.

Blake Zeff joins BerlinRosen Public Affairs as a senior member of our strategic communications practice having just come off two years on the presidential campaign trail – first as a national spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and later as the New York Communication’s Director for the Obama campaign. Prior to the 2008 election cycle Blake served as Communications Director to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and the New York State Democratic Party.

Blake brings to BerlinRosen a deep understanding of what makes and shapes the news and a tremendous background managing the intersection of politics, government and the news media at the local, state and national level.

He’s also an all around good guy.

]]> http://observer.com/2009/03/berlinrosen-wins-the-blake-zeff-primary-2/feed/ 0 jhanasobserver http://observer.com/2008/10/rapid-response-friends-of-obama-friends-of-jews/#comments Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:29:38 -0400 http://observer.com/2008/10/rapid-response-friends-of-obama-friends-of-jews/ Azi Paybarah http://www.observer.com/2008/10/rapid-response-friends-of-obama-friends-of-jews/ Here's a shot from an October 16 sukkah party in Williamsburg for Barack Obama. Obama's New York spokesman (and former Clinton campaign spokesman, and former state party spokesman) Blake Zeff sent over the photo, which shows Representative Jerry Nadler and some rabbis.

He sent it after we ran a picture of Representative Peter King, a McCain supporter, meeting with Jewish leaders.

Clearly taking nothing for granted, these Obama people.

]]> Here's a shot from an October 16 sukkah party in Williamsburg for Barack Obama. Obama's New York spokesman (and former Clinton campaign spokesman, and former state party spokesman) Blake Zeff sent over the photo, which shows Representative Jerry Nadler and some rabbis.

He sent it after we ran a picture of Representative Peter King, a McCain supporter, meeting with Jewish leaders.

Clearly taking nothing for granted, these Obama people.

]]> http://observer.com/2008/10/rapid-response-friends-of-obama-friends-of-jews/feed/ 0 jhanasobserver http://observer.com/2008/10/the-road-to-the-white-house-is-hempstead-turnpike/#comments Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:59:05 -0400 http://observer.com/2008/10/the-road-to-the-white-house-is-hempstead-turnpike/ Jason Horowitz http://www.observer.com/2008/10/the-road-to-the-white-house-is-hempstead-turnpike/ A pamphlet advertising the “National Center for Suburban Studies” was among the souvenirs Hofstra University distributed to reporters covering the final 2008 presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain on Oct. 15. The pamphlet’s back cover consisted of green-tinted cars commuting in heavy traffic. Travelers attending the debate from the city encountered a sign on the Northern State Parkway that read “Pres Debate at Hofstra U. Expect Delays.”

The most eventful and dramatic presidential campaign in living memory had its last confrontation in a part of the world known mostly for its traffic problems.

“It is odd when events like this come to Long Island,” said Dee Snider, a Long Island native and the former frontman of Twisted Sister. “I always thought that they should put a ‘no outlet’ sign over the Midtown Tunnel because no matter how far you go out, you have to turn around and head back just to escape.”

Once lambasted by hippies as a soul-killing suburban wasteland, then drooled over by tabloid editors for all its Amy Fisher-Joey Buttafuoco (or, later, Michael Lohan, or Peter Cook) sordidness, Long Island has gone from blindingly white Republican paradise (“When a Republican dies and goes to heaven, it looks a lot like Nassau County,” Ronald Reagan once said,) to a demographically unrecognizable political bellwether.

Hempstead, the town in which Wednesday night’s debate to decide the next leader of the free world was held, is confronting a massive drug and crime problem. Nearby Terrace Avenue is a virtual no-go zone. One Democratic operative who works in the area said that if you want to eat, you go to "Wings and Things" down the block. “Or to McDonalds, but you can get a real good sandwich at the mall.”

Much more than William Faulkner’s sleepy idyllic Oxford, Mississippi, or the faux gothic stone buildings of Washington University in St. Louis, where two of the previous debates were held, this Long Island, like it or not, actually looks like most everywhere else in America. With its charmless box stores, and dilapidated low-slung architecture, its shortage of pedestrians and abundance of red lights where you can make a right turn, its video stores that rent mostly video games, its fast food joints and pride in kind of famous or faded actors (Billy Baldwin! Andy Kaufman! Eddie Murphy!), drive-through Long Island resembles the flyover states that the candidates visited and revisited on the campaign trail.

“It’s just amazing how much the country all looks like Long Island,” said Snider, who travels a lot in his capacity as a March of Dimes spokesman. “I don’t know if they copied us or we copied them.”

And Long Island, or at least Hofstra, appreciated it. And they worked hard to get it.

Senator Chuck Schumer lobbied to get it. So, at the time anyway, did Governor Eliot Spitzer. Hillary Clinton didn’t because she didn’t think it would be appropriate, because she thought she would be debating. Instead she watched from the audience. The university argued that it was credible because it had held a long-running series of conferences with surviving American presidents. The school took “tremendous” care in filling out its applications in 2007, according to Hofstra’s president, Stuart Rabinowitz, and emphasized the area’s historic importance.

“This is the nation’s oldest suburb,” Rabinowitz said, adding that it was “right next door to Levittown, which was the American dream after WWII.”

But the Hofstra pitch was also a dark one. The debate should be held in Hempstead because Hempstead was the future, and the future looked bleak. A “mature suburb” like this one, Rabinowitz said, was going through tough times. Rabinowitz himself moved to the Island in 1978 after living in the Bronx and then Queens. He was in search of green lawns and baseball fields to raise his kids. But now he said the suburban sprawl had devoured the open spaces that had attracted so many away from the cities. Young people, he said, couldn’t afford to live here and buy their own homes. Transportation problems made commuting more difficult.

“Whatever issues suburbs have,” said Rabinowitz. “We are leading the pack.”

But the Commission on Presidential Debates, which inspected the grounds in June, liked what they saw.

“Hofstra?” said Snider. “It’s far from the shorelines and surrounded by big highways and malls and trapped. Lot of concrete.” Other natives offered a more generous perspective.

“Here we are in the shadow of the eighth wonder of the world: Roosevelt Field,” said Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank after revealing to colleague Howard Fineman of Newsweek in the media center that he grew up only “five miles from here.” Milbank said that Roosevelt Field might be the “prototype” for the modern American shopping mall, and wasn’t sure if the field from which Charles Lindbergh took off for his transatlantic flight was now a Barnes and Noble or a Fortunoff. He compared Hempstead’s strategic position between such major streams of vehicular traffic as the Northern State and the Southern State, the Meadowbrook Parkway and the Long Island Expressway, as being “between the Tigris and the Euphrates.”

Earlier in the day, county sheriff officers in full-brim brown hats parked their cars all around the University and in front of Nassau Coliseum, home of the Islanders, where the non-hockey offerings on the Jumbotron outside included “The Original Globetrotters,” "Metallica" and “Snuggles Presents So You Think You Can Dance.”

They directed traffic near the opaque glass office buildings and away from Museum Row (a sign said it consisted of “Long Island Children’s Museum,” "Cradle of Aviation," “IMAX Theater,” "Firefighters Museum.") Protesters protested in front of the McDonalds and by the Starbucks. People finally broke free of traffic and drove very fast by the Dizzy Lizard Saloon.

On the campus, a girl with the voice of Lindsay Lohan (another local!) wore a “Barack My World” T-shirt as reporters and campaign staff started to trickle into the university. “Ooh look at that,” she said, pointing at guys holding “Yes We CANnabis” signs. A young man wearing a T-shirt and a baseball cap that sat precariously askew on his head said, “Na Na Na. I want to Rock O Ba Ma,” in such a way that left it unclear if he meant it nicely or not.

Asked to name something that recommended Long Island, Obama campaign spokesman Blake Zeff, a Long Island native, said in the media center, “Look at the beautiful weather.”

A few minutes later, Representative Pete King, Republican of Long Island, walked down a path swarming with reporters and gnats. A few feet away, campaign staff and reporters and everyone else with laminated credentials hanging around their necks ate under a white tent. The debate in Mississippi offered nearby Memphis BBQ, and the debate in St. Louis rare steaks. The Long Island debate offered lasagna, turkey and cranberry sauce, peppers stuffed with rice and beans, and salad with oil and red wine vinegar. It was food from everywhere and nowhere. But tonight nowhere was the country’s political capital.

“Years from now people will say, ‘Were you there when Barack Obama debated John McCain?’” said King. “Hempstead is the center of the world for one night.”

]]> A pamphlet advertising the “National Center for Suburban Studies” was among the souvenirs Hofstra University distributed to reporters covering the final 2008 presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain on Oct. 15. The pamphlet’s back cover consisted of green-tinted cars commuting in heavy traffic. Travelers attending the debate from the city encountered a sign on the Northern State Parkway that read “Pres Debate at Hofstra U. Expect Delays.”

The most eventful and dramatic presidential campaign in living memory had its last confrontation in a part of the world known mostly for its traffic problems.

“It is odd when events like this come to Long Island,” said Dee Snider, a Long Island native and the former frontman of Twisted Sister. “I always thought that they should put a ‘no outlet’ sign over the Midtown Tunnel because no matter how far you go out, you have to turn around and head back just to escape.”

Once lambasted by hippies as a soul-killing suburban wasteland, then drooled over by tabloid editors for all its Amy Fisher-Joey Buttafuoco (or, later, Michael Lohan, or Peter Cook) sordidness, Long Island has gone from blindingly white Republican paradise (“When a Republican dies and goes to heaven, it looks a lot like Nassau County,” Ronald Reagan once said,) to a demographically unrecognizable political bellwether.

Hempstead, the town in which Wednesday night’s debate to decide the next leader of the free world was held, is confronting a massive drug and crime problem. Nearby Terrace Avenue is a virtual no-go zone. One Democratic operative who works in the area said that if you want to eat, you go to "Wings and Things" down the block. “Or to McDonalds, but you can get a real good sandwich at the mall.”

Much more than William Faulkner’s sleepy idyllic Oxford, Mississippi, or the faux gothic stone buildings of Washington University in St. Louis, where two of the previous debates were held, this Long Island, like it or not, actually looks like most everywhere else in America. With its charmless box stores, and dilapidated low-slung architecture, its shortage of pedestrians and abundance of red lights where you can make a right turn, its video stores that rent mostly video games, its fast food joints and pride in kind of famous or faded actors (Billy Baldwin! Andy Kaufman! Eddie Murphy!), drive-through Long Island resembles the flyover states that the candidates visited and revisited on the campaign trail.

“It’s just amazing how much the country all looks like Long Island,” said Snider, who travels a lot in his capacity as a March of Dimes spokesman. “I don’t know if they copied us or we copied them.”

And Long Island, or at least Hofstra, appreciated it. And they worked hard to get it.

Senator Chuck Schumer lobbied to get it. So, at the time anyway, did Governor Eliot Spitzer. Hillary Clinton didn’t because she didn’t think it would be appropriate, because she thought she would be debating. Instead she watched from the audience. The university argued that it was credible because it had held a long-running series of conferences with surviving American presidents. The school took “tremendous” care in filling out its applications in 2007, according to Hofstra’s president, Stuart Rabinowitz, and emphasized the area’s historic importance.

“This is the nation’s oldest suburb,” Rabinowitz said, adding that it was “right next door to Levittown, which was the American dream after WWII.”

But the Hofstra pitch was also a dark one. The debate should be held in Hempstead because Hempstead was the future, and the future looked bleak. A “mature suburb” like this one, Rabinowitz said, was going through tough times. Rabinowitz himself moved to the Island in 1978 after living in the Bronx and then Queens. He was in search of green lawns and baseball fields to raise his kids. But now he said the suburban sprawl had devoured the open spaces that had attracted so many away from the cities. Young people, he said, couldn’t afford to live here and buy their own homes. Transportation problems made commuting more difficult.

“Whatever issues suburbs have,” said Rabinowitz. “We are leading the pack.”

But the Commission on Presidential Debates, which inspected the grounds in June, liked what they saw.

“Hofstra?” said Snider. “It’s far from the shorelines and surrounded by big highways and malls and trapped. Lot of concrete.” Other natives offered a more generous perspective.

“Here we are in the shadow of the eighth wonder of the world: Roosevelt Field,” said Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank after revealing to colleague Howard Fineman of Newsweek in the media center that he grew up only “five miles from here.” Milbank said that Roosevelt Field might be the “prototype” for the modern American shopping mall, and wasn’t sure if the field from which Charles Lindbergh took off for his transatlantic flight was now a Barnes and Noble or a Fortunoff. He compared Hempstead’s strategic position between such major streams of vehicular traffic as the Northern State and the Southern State, the Meadowbrook Parkway and the Long Island Expressway, as being “between the Tigris and the Euphrates.”

Earlier in the day, county sheriff officers in full-brim brown hats parked their cars all around the University and in front of Nassau Coliseum, home of the Islanders, where the non-hockey offerings on the Jumbotron outside included “The Original Globetrotters,” "Metallica" and “Snuggles Presents So You Think You Can Dance.”

They directed traffic near the opaque glass office buildings and away from Museum Row (a sign said it consisted of “Long Island Children’s Museum,” "Cradle of Aviation," “IMAX Theater,” "Firefighters Museum.") Protesters protested in front of the McDonalds and by the Starbucks. People finally broke free of traffic and drove very fast by the Dizzy Lizard Saloon.

On the campus, a girl with the voice of Lindsay Lohan (another local!) wore a “Barack My World” T-shirt as reporters and campaign staff started to trickle into the university. “Ooh look at that,” she said, pointing at guys holding “Yes We CANnabis” signs. A young man wearing a T-shirt and a baseball cap that sat precariously askew on his head said, “Na Na Na. I want to Rock O Ba Ma,” in such a way that left it unclear if he meant it nicely or not.

Asked to name something that recommended Long Island, Obama campaign spokesman Blake Zeff, a Long Island native, said in the media center, “Look at the beautiful weather.”

A few minutes later, Representative Pete King, Republican of Long Island, walked down a path swarming with reporters and gnats. A few feet away, campaign staff and reporters and everyone else with laminated credentials hanging around their necks ate under a white tent. The debate in Mississippi offered nearby Memphis BBQ, and the debate in St. Louis rare steaks. The Long Island debate offered lasagna, turkey and cranberry sauce, peppers stuffed with rice and beans, and salad with oil and red wine vinegar. It was food from everywhere and nowhere. But tonight nowhere was the country’s political capital.

“Years from now people will say, ‘Were you there when Barack Obama debated John McCain?’” said King. “Hempstead is the center of the world for one night.”

]]> http://observer.com/2008/10/the-road-to-the-white-house-is-hempstead-turnpike/feed/ 0 jhanasobserver http://observer.com/2008/09/blake-zeff-will-be-obamas-man-in-new-york/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:03:54 -0400 http://observer.com/2008/09/blake-zeff-will-be-obamas-man-in-new-york/ Jason Horowitz http://www.observer.com/2008/09/blake-zeff-will-be-obamas-man-in-new-york/ Blake Zeff, a former spokesman for Hillary Clinton, will be the new director of communications in New York for Barack Obama, effective today.

Zeff, who confirmed the move, was part of the muscular press office Clinton assembled from veterans of Chuck Schumer's legendary communications operation, but unlike Howard Wolfson or Phil Singer, Zeff stayed mostly below the radar. Since Clinton dropped out of the race he he has remained well-liked and highly regarded by the Obama campaign.

He's especially valued for his knowledge of the New York press corps, an expertise he gained working for Schumer from 2002 to 2005 and then as the communications director state Democratic party in 2006. In the interim between the two campaigns he helped Schumer with his book about how to win back the middle class.

]]> Blake Zeff, a former spokesman for Hillary Clinton, will be the new director of communications in New York for Barack Obama, effective today.

Zeff, who confirmed the move, was part of the muscular press office Clinton assembled from veterans of Chuck Schumer's legendary communications operation, but unlike Howard Wolfson or Phil Singer, Zeff stayed mostly below the radar. Since Clinton dropped out of the race he he has remained well-liked and highly regarded by the Obama campaign.

He's especially valued for his knowledge of the New York press corps, an expertise he gained working for Schumer from 2002 to 2005 and then as the communications director state Democratic party in 2006. In the interim between the two campaigns he helped Schumer with his book about how to win back the middle class.

]]> http://observer.com/2008/09/blake-zeff-will-be-obamas-man-in-new-york/feed/ 0 jhanasobserver http://observer.com/2008/02/schumer-says-ny-win-was-all-hillary-nadler-calls-obamas-talk-vacuous/#comments Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:43:35 -0400 http://observer.com/2008/02/schumer-says-ny-win-was-all-hillary-nadler-calls-obamas-talk-vacuous/ Azi Paybarah http://www.observer.com/2008/02/schumer-says-ny-win-was-all-hillary-nadler-calls-obamas-talk-vacuous/ I just got off a somewhat contentious conference call with Hillary Clinton surrogates for New York reporters , who proved somewhat resistant to the pro-Hillary Clinton message coming from Chuck Schumer.

Referring to her primary win in New York yesterday, Schumer told reporters, “This was all Hillary. There was no big party machine in operation. There was no, you know, kind of things like that. It was Hillary.”

I asked him to explain that, given that virtually the entire party establishment was in her corner.

“Well, the political establishment is with her, but I am saying, when I ran my race in ‘98, and when Hillary ran her race in 2000, there was a huge get-out-the-vote operation with thousands and thousands of people and phone calls and everything else. I don’t think Hillary needed that in New York and results proved it.”

Liz Benjamin pointed out that the unions were phone-banking for her.

“Look, I’m not saying they weren’t," Schumer said. "I am saying that compared to get-out-the-vote operations in closely contested elections, and particularly with new candidates, this was not, you know, it was not that kind of operation. It didn’t have to be.”

Newsday’s John Riley asked Schumer why he thought Barack Obama did so much better in his home-state of Illinois than Clinton did in New York.

Campaign spokesman Blake Zeff intercepted the question, offering the explanation afterwards that New York is much bigger than Illinois and they didn’t campaign there with the same intensity that the Obama people did here.

Also, there was this, from Jerry Nadler: “I think last night really stopped what was building up to be a very strong Obama momentum. It seems to me at least that a lot of what he said is awfully vacuous. There isn’t much there.”

]]> I just got off a somewhat contentious conference call with Hillary Clinton surrogates for New York reporters , who proved somewhat resistant to the pro-Hillary Clinton message coming from Chuck Schumer.

Referring to her primary win in New York yesterday, Schumer told reporters, “This was all Hillary. There was no big party machine in operation. There was no, you know, kind of things like that. It was Hillary.”

I asked him to explain that, given that virtually the entire party establishment was in her corner.

“Well, the political establishment is with her, but I am saying, when I ran my race in ‘98, and when Hillary ran her race in 2000, there was a huge get-out-the-vote operation with thousands and thousands of people and phone calls and everything else. I don’t think Hillary needed that in New York and results proved it.”

Liz Benjamin pointed out that the unions were phone-banking for her.

“Look, I’m not saying they weren’t," Schumer said. "I am saying that compared to get-out-the-vote operations in closely contested elections, and particularly with new candidates, this was not, you know, it was not that kind of operation. It didn’t have to be.”

Newsday’s John Riley asked Schumer why he thought Barack Obama did so much better in his home-state of Illinois than Clinton did in New York.

Campaign spokesman Blake Zeff intercepted the question, offering the explanation afterwards that New York is much bigger than Illinois and they didn’t campaign there with the same intensity that the Obama people did here.

Also, there was this, from Jerry Nadler: “I think last night really stopped what was building up to be a very strong Obama momentum. It seems to me at least that a lot of what he said is awfully vacuous. There isn’t much there.”

]]> http://observer.com/2008/02/schumer-says-ny-win-was-all-hillary-nadler-calls-obamas-talk-vacuous/feed/ 0 jhanasobserver http://observer.com/2008/01/clinton-campaign-sees-symbolism-in-hallmark-channel-for-feb-4-national-town-hall/#comments Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:09:17 -0400 http://observer.com/2008/01/clinton-campaign-sees-symbolism-in-hallmark-channel-for-feb-4-national-town-hall/ Azi Paybarah http://www.observer.com/2008/01/clinton-campaign-sees-symbolism-in-hallmark-channel-for-feb-4-national-town-hall/ Hillary Clinton’s "national town hall" in New York on Monday will air on the Hallmark channel in the 22 states voting on February 5th.

On a conference call with reporters just now, campaign spokesman Blake Zeff said it was the “culmination” of the technological outreach they’ve employed since the campaign began.

When I asked why it was airing on the Hallmark channel, Anthony Weiner, who was also on the call, said, “We’re using the Hallmark channel to point out that the hallmark of the Clinton campaign is to focus on the substance and the challenges that we have in the four years ahead. To point out that the hallmark of this campaign is using technology to reach voters is to bring them into the process as much as possible, and to point out that the hallmark of this campaign is to make decisions based on who will be ready to govern on Day One."

Weiner added, "We thought the Hallmark Channel would be an important place to make those points.”

Zeff added, “When you care enough to send the very best, Hallmark.”

]]> Hillary Clinton’s "national town hall" in New York on Monday will air on the Hallmark channel in the 22 states voting on February 5th.

On a conference call with reporters just now, campaign spokesman Blake Zeff said it was the “culmination” of the technological outreach they’ve employed since the campaign began.

When I asked why it was airing on the Hallmark channel, Anthony Weiner, who was also on the call, said, “We’re using the Hallmark channel to point out that the hallmark of the Clinton campaign is to focus on the substance and the challenges that we have in the four years ahead. To point out that the hallmark of this campaign is using technology to reach voters is to bring them into the process as much as possible, and to point out that the hallmark of this campaign is to make decisions based on who will be ready to govern on Day One."

Weiner added, "We thought the Hallmark Channel would be an important place to make those points.”

Zeff added, “When you care enough to send the very best, Hallmark.”

]]> http://observer.com/2008/01/clinton-campaign-sees-symbolism-in-hallmark-channel-for-feb-4-national-town-hall/feed/ 0 jhanasobserver http://observer.com/2006/03/keeping-up-with-the-bushes/#comments Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:42:31 -0400 http://observer.com/2006/03/keeping-up-with-the-bushes/ http://www.observer.com/2006/03/keeping-up-with-the-bushes/ So how is Hillary going to run up the score this year?

The spokesman for the State Democratic Party, Blake Zeff, confirmed to me that they're rolling out a nascent field program called "Neighborhood Network," under which volunteers around the state focus on bringing around their own communities in a kind of neighbor-to-neighbor, Amway-style political marketing most recently associated with, say, the Bush campaign in Ohio.

So far, the volunteers are on the phone to Democrats in their areas, asking about their concerns. But asking people to convince their neighbors is the new-new-thing in political organizing, after the whole college-kid-with-PDA thing didn't work out so well for the Democrats in 2004.

Running the program is a longtime organizer named Kenny Diggs, who ran the field operations for the labor-backed Voices for Working Families.

]]> So how is Hillary going to run up the score this year?

The spokesman for the State Democratic Party, Blake Zeff, confirmed to me that they're rolling out a nascent field program called "Neighborhood Network," under which volunteers around the state focus on bringing around their own communities in a kind of neighbor-to-neighbor, Amway-style political marketing most recently associated with, say, the Bush campaign in Ohio.

So far, the volunteers are on the phone to Democrats in their areas, asking about their concerns. But asking people to convince their neighbors is the new-new-thing in political organizing, after the whole college-kid-with-PDA thing didn't work out so well for the Democrats in 2004.

Running the program is a longtime organizer named Kenny Diggs, who ran the field operations for the labor-backed Voices for Working Families.

]]> http://observer.com/2006/03/keeping-up-with-the-bushes/feed/ 0 jhanasobserver http://observer.com/2006/03/friday-imterview-blake-zeff/#comments Fri, 24 Mar 2006 16:31:15 -0400 http://observer.com/2006/03/friday-imterview-blake-zeff/ http://www.observer.com/2006/03/friday-imterview-blake-zeff/ This Friday’s brief edition of this not-so-regular feature brings you Blake Zeff, a former Chuck Schumer press guy who is now the prolific spokesman for the New York State Democratic Party.

BENOBSERVER: So I theorized in the paper this week that you’re part of a plot to make John Spencer the GOP Senate nominee. Confess!
ZEFF: yes, and john spencer theorized that we’re part of a plot to make KT McFarland the candidate
ZEFF: so many plots, so little time
ZEFF: what’s a man to do?
BENOBSERVER: you got in a "million little pieces" reference the other day, amid the tide of press releases.
BENOBSERVER: had you actually read the book?
ZEFF: sadly no
ZEFF: the original plan was to release a list of top ten things kt mcfarland did not write
ZEFF: "a million little pieces"
ZEFF: the SNL "lazy sunday" rap
ZEFF: and of course, the "star wars" speech
ZEFF: i think the seinfeld "puffy shirt" episode was in there, as well
BENOBSERVER: did it get vetoed
ZEFF: nah, i had to focus on a john sweeney corruption release and then bill weld flip-flopped again
ZEFF: so i had to get on that
BENOBSERVER: a hard life you have
ZEFF: (i should specify that was rep. john sweeney, not the labor leader)
BENOBSERVER: do you feel that having worked in Chuck Schumer’s press office, you’ve become his clone?
ZEFF: physically?
BENOBSERVER: mentally. there’s a theory that young chuck aides become chuck. You, Stu, Josh Isay, all the many others. All body-snatched.
ZEFF: don’t forget rodney
ZEFF: yeah there’s definitely a familial bond all schumer staffers share
ZEFF: i still get mistaken for anthony weiner from time to time

]]> This Friday’s brief edition of this not-so-regular feature brings you Blake Zeff, a former Chuck Schumer press guy who is now the prolific spokesman for the New York State Democratic Party.

BENOBSERVER: So I theorized in the paper this week that you’re part of a plot to make John Spencer the GOP Senate nominee. Confess!
ZEFF: yes, and john spencer theorized that we’re part of a plot to make KT McFarland the candidate
ZEFF: so many plots, so little time
ZEFF: what’s a man to do?
BENOBSERVER: you got in a "million little pieces" reference the other day, amid the tide of press releases.
BENOBSERVER: had you actually read the book?
ZEFF: sadly no
ZEFF: the original plan was to release a list of top ten things kt mcfarland did not write
ZEFF: "a million little pieces"
ZEFF: the SNL "lazy sunday" rap
ZEFF: and of course, the "star wars" speech
ZEFF: i think the seinfeld "puffy shirt" episode was in there, as well
BENOBSERVER: did it get vetoed
ZEFF: nah, i had to focus on a john sweeney corruption release and then bill weld flip-flopped again
ZEFF: so i had to get on that
BENOBSERVER: a hard life you have
ZEFF: (i should specify that was rep. john sweeney, not the labor leader)
BENOBSERVER: do you feel that having worked in Chuck Schumer’s press office, you’ve become his clone?
ZEFF: physically?
BENOBSERVER: mentally. there’s a theory that young chuck aides become chuck. You, Stu, Josh Isay, all the many others. All body-snatched.
ZEFF: don’t forget rodney
ZEFF: yeah there’s definitely a familial bond all schumer staffers share
ZEFF: i still get mistaken for anthony weiner from time to time

]]> http://observer.com/2006/03/friday-imterview-blake-zeff/feed/ 0 jhanasobserver http://observer.com/2005/10/state-party-staffs-up/#comments Mon, 03 Oct 2005 15:00:00 -0400 http://observer.com/2005/10/state-party-staffs-up/ http://www.observer.com/2005/10/state-party-staffs-up/ The Politicker hears that Blake Zeff, formerly of Chuck's office, has started work as the new press secretary for the New York State Democratic Party.

A clear sign that the party is gearing up for ... one of these elections or the other.

UPDATE: Also, a reader notes that three of the communications staffers on the Mayor's race -- Zeff, Bloomberg aide Stu Loeser, and Ferrer press secretary Christy Setzer -- all worked together for the ubiquitous Chuck.

]]> The Politicker hears that Blake Zeff, formerly of Chuck's office, has started work as the new press secretary for the New York State Democratic Party.

A clear sign that the party is gearing up for ... one of these elections or the other.

UPDATE: Also, a reader notes that three of the communications staffers on the Mayor's race -- Zeff, Bloomberg aide Stu Loeser, and Ferrer press secretary Christy Setzer -- all worked together for the ubiquitous Chuck.

]]> http://observer.com/2005/10/state-party-staffs-up/feed/ 0 jhanasobserver