Chris Lehane

Chris Lehane

Christopher Stephen Lehane (born June 2, 1967) is an American political consultant and crisis communications expert who has served as a lawyer, spokesperson and expert in opposition research for the Clinton White House, Democratic candidates for public office and various business, Labor, entertainment and professional sports organizations.^[1]A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School, he was a lawyer and spokesperson in the Clinton White House where he and his current business partner Mark Fabiani were called the "Masters of Disaster" by Newsweek magazine for their part in a "rapid-response" team employed by to respond to the increasing number of investigations of the Clinton Administration.^[2]

Political work

In 1992, Lehane was the political director of the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign in Maine, and was later brought into the White House where he served as a lawyer in the White House Counsel's Office who worked as part of a small unit responsible for helping the White House manage various scandals throughout the 1990s such as Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky affair. ^[3]

In 1995 Lehane authored a 332-page "report" on a media "conspiracy" against the Clintons, of which only 2 and 1/2 pages are written text; the remainder are newspaper and internet clippings. This report was the origin of the phrase "vast right wing conspiracy" that is often attributed to Hillary Clinton. Because of Lehane's scrutiny of the right-wing media "food chain," he is often credited with being a proponent of its methods within the Democratic party.^[4]

In the 2000 Presidential campaign, Lehane served as the Press Secretary for Vice President Al Gore.^[5] Lehane was credited with improving Gore's press relations with the press corps, his one liners and for his opposition research work.^{[6] [7] [8]} In his 2010 book, President George W. Bush's top political strategist Karl Rove, call him "one of the Democratic Party’s best opposition researchers" credited Lehane's making public George W. Bush's DWI history as the basis for Gore winning the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election.^[9] Lehane has done work for other leading political figures in the U.S., including New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and former California Governor Gray Davis.^[10][11]

The New York Times labeled Lehane the "Master of the Political Dark Arts" for his opposition research work on behalf of the failed Wesley Clark bid for the 2004 nomination when he mounted considerable efforts to derail the Howard Dean bid, portraying him as hypocritical, dishonest, and inconsistent. ^[12]

In 2007, Lehane helped create the Lincoln Brigade, an organization that defeated a Republican sponsored ballot initiative designed to change how California divides up its Electoral College votes.^[13]

In April of 2009, Lehane, and Republican political consultant Steve Schmidt, opened up a ballot initiative political firm.^[14] Lehane has served as a strategist on various statewide ballot campaigns, including running the "no" side to a Republican Party sponsored Electoral College initiative, Labor's Proposition 17, the Chamber of Commerce sponsored effort to change the state's class action law, No On 17, the effort to pass California Proposition 19, or the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 and other statewide and local initiatives. ^[15][16]

In 2010, Lehane helped launch Level The Playing Field an independent expenditure organization backed by organized Labor designed to target Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman.^[17]

Lehane is often included in discussions of "politics of personal destruction" methodologies employed by political campaign consultants, including feeding information to selected media outlets.^[18] Lehane often works as a television commentator and a frequent op ed contributor.

Business work

Lehane and his partner Mark Fabiani are retained to represent various corporate, Labor, entertainment and sports organizations.^[19] Lehane is often quoted as an expert on crisis management^[20] Lehane's firm has represented California Edison during the California Energy crisis, Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis, Cisco Systems when the Internet bubble burst, Hollywood studios, Indian tribes and other leading businesses. ^[21][22]

Lehane does significant sports work having represented the National Hockey League, the City of Sacramento in its effort to build a new sports and entertainment complex, the Big East, Marion Jones and the San Diego Chargers. ^[23]

Lehane's entertainment work has included helping Michael Moore with his films such as Fahrenheit 911 and SiCKO and "orchestrating" the News's Corps funded and minority organization supported Don't Count Us Out campaign against the Nielsen Media Research relating to concerns that minority viewership was being undercounted. ^[24][25]

Lehane has worked for consumer groups, trial lawyers and helped lead organized Labor's opposition to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's agenda in California. ^[26][27]

Quotations

"If you look at the landscape in politics, business, entertainment, and sports over the last 20 or 30 years there's been a similar dynamic. You've had an explosion of media outlets. Information now travels at hyper speeds. The public has both a thirst for it, and particularly with social networking, they can now engage and participate with newsgathering and discussion. All that means there's a higher premium than ever before on making sure you protect the brand. In politics, especially after Watergate, new standards came into play, and success became a question not of whether you were going to face a crisis, but how you responded when you did face a crisis. The politicians who have been successful at the highest level are those who have been able to manage their way through a crisis and go on and get reelected. That's now becoming true in other areas, like sports."—Chris Lehane, quoted in Atlantic Monthly, March 17, 2010^[28]

"If the other guy brings a knife, bring a gun."—Chris Lehane, quoted in the Sacramento Bee, December 23, 2009^[29]

"[Y]ou have to plant a lot of seeds in the spring and the summer so you can capitalize on it. If you have a story that's going to hit in the middle of September, middle of October, what you really want to do is build several things that come off of the story so that it's not just a one-day hit. If the story runs on the front page of a major paper, you also want to set it up so that it hits some of the television morning shows, and from there you want to have surrogates out the next day, so that you get a second hit. On the third day, ideally, you have some additional information you've been holding back that you can feed into it, another round of stories. On the fourth or fifth day you try to hold your candidate back from saying anything, so that eventually, when he does say something about the issue, you get another round of stories. If you do it all effectively, you can basically wipe out a guy's entire week. He'll spend the entire week responding to a story that showed up on a Monday."—Chris Lehane, quoted in Atlantic Monthly, June 2004^[30]

"[H]it back harder than you got"—Chris Lehane, quoted in San Francisco Chronicle, October 24, 2004^[31]

References

1. ^ Garofoli, Joe (2004-10-24). "The Spinner". SFGate.com. http://articles.sfgate.com/2004-10-24/living/17447200_1_kerry-s-campaign-war-service-john-kerry. Retrieved 2010-06-01. 
2. ^ Bizjak, Tony. "Arena effort taps experts in hardball". Sacramento Bee. http://www.sacbee.com/2009/12/23/2416079/arena-effort-taps-expert-in-hardball.html. Retrieved 2010-06-01. 
3. ^ Garofoli, Joe (2004-10-24). "State Dem group played hardball to kill GOP election system plan". The San Francisco Chronicle. http://articles.sfgate.com/2004-10-24/living/17447200_1_kerry-s-campaign-war-service-john-kerry. 
4. ^ Garofoli, p.5
5. ^ Kurtz, Howard (2000-01-12). "Al Gore's Hot Media Messenger; Chris Lehane, Meeting the Press Halfway". Washington Post. 
6. ^ Kurtz, Howard (2000-01-12). "Al Gore's Hot Media Messenger; Chris Lehane, Meeting the Press Halfway". Washington Post. 
7. ^ Kevin, Sack (2000-11-06). "The 2000 Campaign: The Phrase Turners". New York Times. http://www.theatlantic.com/past/issues/2004/06/green.htm. Retrieved 2010-06-01. 
8. ^ Green, Joshua (2004-06). "Playing Dirty". The Atlantic. 
9. ^ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/33946.html
10. ^ Kurtz, Howard (2000-01-12). "Al Gore's Hot Media Messenger; Chris Lehane, Meeting the Press Halfway". Washington Post. 
11. ^ Garofoli, Joe (2004-10-24). "The Spinner". SFGate.com. http://articles.sfgate.com/2004-10-24/living/17447200_1_kerry-s-campaign-war-service-john-kerry. Retrieved 2010-06-01. 
12. ^ Stolberg, Sheryl Gay (2004-01-16). "THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: STRATEGY; Master of the Political Dark Arts". New York Times. 
13. ^ Marinucci, Carla (2007-10-07). "Election madness / Voters are angry and the recall may be just the beginning of their rebellion / California's populist revival". The San Francisco Chronicle. http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-10-07/news/17267740_1_ballot-measure-democratic-effort-white-house. 
14. ^ Nagourney, Adam (2009-01-14). "Lehane and Schmidt to Work Together". The New York Times. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/lehane-and-schmidt-to-work-together/. 
15. ^ Marinucci, Carla (2007-10-07). "Election madness / Voters are angry and the recall may be just the beginning of their rebellion / California's populist revival". The San Francisco Chronicle. http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-10-07/news/17267740_1_ballot-measure-democratic-effort-white-house. 
16. ^ Hoeffel, John (2010-03-25). "Measure to legalize marijuana will be on California's November ballot". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/25/local/la-me-marijuana-initiative25-2010mar25. Retrieved 2010-04-24. 
17. ^ Matier, Phillip; Ross, Andrew (2010-02-10). "Brown's allies fund effort targeting Whitman". The San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/09/BAD81BV2AH.DTL. 
18. ^ Green, n.p
19. ^ Verrier, Richard (2007-12-06). "Studios bring in political PR guns to boost image". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/06/business/fi-strike6. 
20. ^ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/03/the-political-strategy-behind-tigers-comeback/37655/
21. ^ Garofoli, p5
22. ^ Ciarallo, Joe (2010-04-27). "Goldman Sachs Bolsters PR with Democratic Strategist Mark Fabiani". PRNewser. http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/crisis_communications/goldman_sachs_bolsters_pr_with_democratic_strategist_mark_fabiani_159677.asp. Retrieved 2010-06-01. 
23. ^ McCarthy, Michael (2005-06-07). "Sports leagues seek advice from political realm". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2005-06-07-political-advisors_x.htm?loc=interstitialskip. Retrieved 2010-06-01. 
24. ^ Mohr, Ian (2005-06-07). "Weinsteins' hired guns set 'Sicko' spin". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117964608.html?categoryid=13&cs=1. Retrieved 2010-06-01. 
25. ^ Verrier, Richard (2007-12-06). "Studios bring in political PR guns to boost image". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/06/business/fi-strike6. 
26. ^ http://ilrinfo.org/news/index.cfm
27. ^ Rau, Jordan (2007-10-16). "Unions give up on gov.'s health plan". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/16/local/me-health16. Retrieved 2010-06-01. 
28. ^ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/03/the-political-strategy-behind-tigers-comeback/37655/
29. ^ Bizjak, p1
30. ^ http://www.theatlantic.com/past/issues/2004/06/green.htm
31. ^ Garofoli, p1

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Name	Lehane, Chris
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Date of birth	1967-06-02
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