Monday, March 2nd, 2009...9:26 am
When You Are In a Deep Hole, Keep Hiring Consultants
I recieved a couple of e-mails this weekend from people preturbed that the state party is hiring a head hunter to search for the next executive director. I share a great deal of the concerns of the people that wrote me, but I did a little poking around and found out a little about what motivated the decision.
First off, the “rollout” of this doesn’t seem to be handled well. Given what has gone on over the last couple of weeks, and the complaints of lack of communication and inclusion for the last few years, it is understandable that many party officers would feel like this decision was yet another one sprung on them. Call it justifiable paranoia.
One of the complaints that many of us have had was that party staff was too eager to hire consultants, often for too much money. It is weird that the solution to that would be hiring a consultant to head up staff, especially given how hard it will be to fundraise this year.
Another concern is that the head hunter will be a guy named David Bruno, who is a registered Republican. Given that this process will involve airing the party’s dirty laundry, folks are wondering if it is a good idea to bring in a Republican.
Like I said, I have a lot of concerns about this myself. For example, why a national search when there have been three names circulating that have strong records working for the party and candidates? Also, does this firm know the differences running a party organization and running a non-profit or a business? Have they dealt with political organizations before?
I poked around a little bit. Although I am still concerned about the way this has come down, I am understanding a little more about the thinking here. Two things right off: the funding for this search has come from a single donor, the party isn’t dipping into its funds to pay for this (this is a big part of the reason why party officers weren’t let in on it, but they should have been included).
As for the party registration of Bruno, yep, he’s a Republican. He is not an active Republican, though. I did a search of donors to Arizona campaigns for the last decade and only found a single $100 donation to the Arizona Chamber Commerce PAC in 2007 (a search on Open Secrets showed no donations to federal candidates). This barely makes the guy Jim Click. My understanding is that he voted for Janet Napolitano, and that his son worked for Barack Obama. Not that I think this makes the hiring of a consultant the greatest idea, but that the fear that he’ll be feeding dirt to Randy Pullen is a bit overblown.
Talking to a few folks, I’ve discovered a bit more about the motives of the people who encouraged this move. One thing to think about is that the party’s karmazyn signed off on this plan. This includes party cardinals who haven’t been too excited about the state party’s leadership and staff. It is interesting that, despite the fact that many of them have endorsed him, they would want to short circuit the ability of once and probably future chair Don Bivens to appoint his own executive director.
The other thing at work here is the 2010 governor’s race. It is difficult to imagine that Jim Pederson would want Terry Goddard’s pal Bivens to have full control of the party’s day to day opperations. This process, if it works, would be a way of making sure that the choosing of the executive director isn’t colored by the coming primary fight.
Don’t get me wrong, I think spending money on a national search is ill-advised. I’d rather we find someone here in Arizona that knows the players and knows how campaigns work out here. I’ll write about the sort of folks I’d like to see as executive director later in the week.
15 Comments
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:44 am
Thanks for picking up on this, Ted. But, just what gives these “stakeholders,” a term I’m sick of hearing by the way, the “right” to appoint someone to do the search. Isn’t this vested in the executive committee (consisting of the state officers, LD chairs, county chairs & vice chairs) or the State Chair, of which we only have an “acting” chair right now? This is a little more than a poor “rollout.” Sometimes the process itself is very important – especially when there has been such a problem with communication and trasparency recently. Looking forward to hearing about your suggestions. Maybe sooner is better than later on this given how this stuff is taking place behind closed doors without even the knowledge of most of the State Party’s elected officers.
March 2nd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
It sounds like another case of inside baseball to me, which was something I thought the state committee had clearly communicated they wanted ended. Unfortunately, this will reinforce the notion of some that the messages from the first party organizational elections have not been heard at all. It’s as if leadership is saying, “We’re sorry and we’re not going to do that again and this time we mean it.” This doesn’t move us forward in any way.
I’m not so concerned about Bruno being a Republican because, as Ted points out, he isn’t active in the party. He’s not a donor, he’s not a Republican PC, and he doesn’t seem to be wired into the AZ GOP in any way. He’s a technical headhunter who works at the local DHR office. Did we need a headhunter, though? Probably not.
Good intentions aside, it would have been nice to have the executive board learn about the contract and discuss it before the decision was made even though someone else wrote the check to hire the firm. Sometimes the better side of valor would be to say “thank you, but no thank you” to money, regardless of who holds the checkbook.
Then there’s that old notion of “whoever writes the check writes the rules” and what that means in terms of who gets the E.D. job. People want change, not more of the same.
We need to do more stop these self-inflicted wounds. These are avoidable mistakes that happen way too often and simple communication would help put an end to it. But that means those running daily operations need to have confidence that the board can comprehend the subject, arguments and possible solutions and can make good decisions. Like a lot of others, I don’t see that happening quite yet.
Saturday will be an interesting day, to say the least.
March 2nd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
@Jim hahaha
All kidding aside, I thought the suggested procedure in the StrongerADP plan was a good balance of professional search/vetting and advising among party leaders & the chair.
Here’s hoping that this headhunter at least achieves the “professional” part. That’s really what matters anyway.
March 2nd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
edit: The Jim part was to a comment which appears to have been removed.
March 2nd, 2009 at 3:09 pm
its really not just hiring consultants. its the cronyism.
Lets take the mail for 2006 and 2008. In 2006, David Waid’s consulting cbud Ziemba of Ziemba-Waid was hired to do the mail. He was paid $750,000-$1,000,000 for the contract. Only $500,000-$650,000 went to the actual mail and the actual mail was designed by Kennedy Communications. Kennedy has done the mail for the State Party since 2001, except then, Dj Harper was on the state party staff rolls and was paid like a staff person. Now, we pay David in 2008 and his bud in 2006 upwards of $250,000 each election cycle to basically do the job DJ used to do for free and David Waid did in 2004 when he worked on the Legislative Caucus races.
You want waste, try right there. Kennedy Communications just designs, prints and mails. He relies on the ADP staff or consultants to provide him with message, direction etc etc.
So you want to start talking about the “message” of the party when it comes to the legislative seats, start right there with Ziemba-Waid.
Then of course take Michael Frias. In 2006, Michael was the coordinated campaign director. He received a salary, then his consulting group received another salary , and then he also was paid for consulting on the Vote by Mail pieces as well. That ladies and gentlebeings, is whats called a “Tripple Dip”.
March 2nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Speaking of DJ, he was one of the few people who saw the writing on the wall for the State races last fall. Did a fine job as Chris Cummiskey’s right hand at GITA as well. Hmmmm…anybody need an Executive Director?
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:02 pm
5 candidates needed for Approach….
Laura Sanchez, former New Mexico Exec. Director, Arizona ties.
Ana Ma…..she probably is way out of our league
Raul Avilar—he may already have job in the Obama Administration, but……..
These are my first 3, I think we should all make suggestions…..and see if this Headhunter really is worth 200 Grand….
I would like the ANONYMOUS Stronger ADP people to comment on these candidates for Executive Director
March 2nd, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Anonymous:
The you want the anonymous SADP people to comment anonymously on your list which you posted anonymously.
Like I said yesterday, it is hard for me (and I was one of those who voted for Paul Eckerstrom last month, though I’m supporting Bivens this time around) to take seriously anonymous requests for anonymous comments from anonymous people.
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Hey Eli—at least now you are in on the joke…..thanks for pointing out the obvious irony in my post…..
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Hey Ted—
I don’t understand what the problem with this contract is……..Signed David W.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Regarding Scottsdale’s comments – this is ignorance personified. Since I was involved in the 2006 Leg Campaigns I can personally attest that the mail firm hired in 2006 was JMG360 from DC. The ADP spent far less than 500k on them for legislative campaigns in 2006.
A different mail firm was hired for non legislative campaigns, also out of DC, which did not include Tom Ziemba. There is plenty to criticize about everything that went wrong in 2006, but blatantly misstating facts does not help anyone. The truth is that there are serious critiques to be made, but you can’t make them.
As far as the ED search, I believe that one of the problems is lack of significant AZ experience at the ADP coupled with some institutional arrogance. I believe we should look for someone with local ties, extensive experience and a degree of humility.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:55 pm
“I believe that one of the problems is lack of significant AZ experience at the ADP coupled with some institutional arrogance. I believe we should look for someone with local ties, extensive experience and a degree of humility.”
May I second that suggestion! Please add some serious good sense about using statistics in deciding where to put our door knocking/phone banking/ activating voters efforts! Mayhaps we should see if Nate Silver is looking for work!!
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:33 pm
For $35 you can post the job opening on http://www.DemocraticGAIN.org and have access to the resumes of some of the top Democratic political operatives in the country. It’s like a Monster.com for political operatives. The idea of paying a head hunter for an ED position just doesn’t make much sense, unless you want to give the appearance of a nationwide search and then ultimately place your person in there.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:59 am
I told the acting chair that I thought this was a really bad idea and nearly got my head bitten off!
March 15th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Bad information above. I last did mail for ADP in 2002, and I can assure you much less was spent on mail back then. Furthermore, I have no idea who Tom Ziemba or Waid are.
Please get the facts straight.
Sincerely,
Andrew Kennedy
Kennedy Communications
Washington DC