- Charles R. Black, Jr.
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Charles R. Black, Jr. Born United States Occupation Chief Presidential campaign adviser for Senator John McCain Charles R. Black, Jr. (born 1947), is a former chief lobbyist for BKSH & Associates, a lobbying firm associated with Burson-Marsteller. Black also worked for Ronald Reagan's two Presidential campaigns in 1976 and 1980 and he was a senior political adviser to the 1992 re-election campaign of George H.W. Bush. He served as chief campaign adviser for Senator John McCain in the 2008 Presidential election.
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Education
Black earned a BA in Political Science from the University of Florida in 1969 and later a JD from American University's law school.
Political career
Black says that he fell in love in politics when he worked on the presidential campaign of Republican Barry Goldwater as a high school student in 1964.[1]
In 1972 he contended with Karl Rove for the leadership of the College Republicans, in a contest so heated that then Republican National Committee (RNC) head George H.W. Bush was forced to intervene.[2]
In the same year, he served as a young campaign worker in the first senatorial campaign of Jesse Helms. In 1996, with Harvey Gantt running against Helms, Black told the New York Times that, at the beginning of the 1972 race, “everybody knew [Helms] was too conservative, he’d never run for office, and couldn’t win. But it was a good conservative cause, so I went down and worked on his campaign for the last six months. And lo and behold, we did win.”[1][3]
In 1975, Black co-founded the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC) with Terry Dolan and Roger Stone.[1]
Black went on to work for a succession of Republican presidential campaigns from 1976 to 1992, including those of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. His first hire on the Reagan campaign was Lee Atwater, whom he met during the course of his work with the RNC in 1972. He re-emerged as an advisor to George W. Bush's campaigns in 2000 and 2004 and has been quoted in news stories as an unofficial White House spokesman.[citation needed]
A colleague of Black's, Republican media consultant Roger Ailes, attested to his reputation for toughness: "Charlie's the kind of guy who if he came home and found somebody making out with his wife on a rainy day, he'd break the guy's umbrella and ask him to leave, then have him killed a year later. Lee Atwater would blow the house up."[4]
On June 23, 2008 he said in a magazine interview that a terrorist attack on the United States would help his candidate, Senator John McCain.[5]
Lobbying activity
Black was a founding partner in lobbying powerhouse Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, and its successor BKSH & Associates. During his time there, Black and his partners the firm did work acted as registered foreign agents for a number of controversial regimes and oppositional figures, including Jonas Savimbi, the Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Nigerian General Ibrahim Babangida, Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre, the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the countries of Kenya and Equatorial Guinea, among others.[6]
According to Black, the United States State Department urged him to work with Seko in holding a democratic election. Mobutu cancelled the election results and Black's firm again terminated their relationship.[7]
Black has also been criticized for work he did for Jonas Savimbi of Angola, who paid his firm some $5 million to lobby to generate favorable U.S. media coverage and political support in Washington. In a 1990 interview, Black defended his work for Savimbi, saying, "Now when you're in a war, trying to manage a war, when the enemy ... is no more than a couple of hours away from you at any given time, you might not run your territory according to New Hampshire town meeting rules."[8]
Black and his firm were also early supporters of Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi as early as 1999,[9] and received $200,000 to $300,000 from the U.S. government to provide consulting services to Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. Black proved highly useful to Chalabi, providing the Iraqi exile with access to high-powered officials in Washington. Black says the firm did "standard kinds of public relations and public affairs, setting up seminars, helping them get speeches covered by the press, press conferences" and says his company can take pride in what they accomplished: "The whole thing was very successful. The INC became not only well-known, but I think the message got out there strongly."[10]
References
- ^ a b c Pensito Review, 10 Thing to Know About Charlie Black
- ^ Muriel Kane, Blackwater PR firm aided Chalabi; Works to polish AT&T's image, The Raw Story October 23, 2007
- ^ Helms' "Hands" anti-affirmative action campaign ad on YouTube, item KIyewCdXMzk
- ^ Robin Toner, "Washington at Work; The New Spokesman for the Republicans: a Tough Player in a Rough Arena", New York Times July 31, 1990
- ^ Whitford, David (June 23, 2008). "The evolution of John McCain". CNN. http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/20/magazines/fortune/Evolution_McCain_Whitford.fortune/. Retrieved April 28, 2010.
- ^ Shear, Michael D.; Birnbaum, Jeffrey H. (May 22, 2008). "McCain Adviser's Work As Lobbyist Criticized". The Washington Post: pp. A01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/21/AR2008052103006.html. Retrieved 2008-08-08.
- ^ Marc Ambinder (May 17, 2008) - Charlie Black On His Lobbying Career
- ^ Burkholder, Steve (1993). "On the town with Jonas Savimbi - huge U.S. lobbying expenditures by Angola". Common Cause Magazine. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1554/is_n1_v19/ai_13571831.
- ^ Nikola Kozloff, Charlie Black's Play Book
- ^ Adam Roston, Chalabi's Lobby The Nation April 3, 2008
External links
Categories:- American lobbyists
- University of Florida alumni
- College Republicans
- 1947 births
- Living people
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