Geoff Garin

Andrew Grossman, a top-tier Democratic operative who founded an anti-Wal-Mart group is on board with Bill Thompson’s 2009 campaign. (Thompson is widely expected to run for mayor).

Grossman was described as a “political strategist” in this story about the comptroller's campaign spending, and a Thompson campaign aide explained Grossman’s role as “a general consultant", adding, "He’s helping put together the infrastructure of the campaign.” Grossman was paid $39,500 between March and July of this year, according to records with the city Campaign Finance Board.

Grossman comes to the campaign with considerable skills as an organizer. According to the bio on his company’s web site, Grossman worked at the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee from 1999 to 2003.  read more »

Pollster Joel Benenson, who is currently working for Barack Obama, confirmed he’s set to work on at least two citywide races next year.

In a brief interview this morning, Benenson said he’ll be crunching numbers for Anthony Weiner--who has all but announced formally he’s running for mayor--and David Yassky, who is running for comptroller.

Benenson was Weiner’s pollster for his 2005 mayoral race and worked for Yassky during his 2006 congressional race. Interestingly, one of Yassky’s main opponents in the comptroller’s race, Melinda Katz, has hired Hillary Clinton pollster Geoff Garin.

Also worth noting about Benenson: back in 2003, he, along with Howard Wolfson, conducted a poll that helped brand Michael Bloomberg as an out-of-touch billionaire.

The Clinton campaign is not giving an inch, at least not yet.

Howard Wolfson just said at the top of this morning's conference call that the campaign would discuss how it would go forward to the "nomination and victory in November."

Clinton pollster and strategist Geoff Garin said "Indiana was obviously a close outcome but it was an outcome about which we feel very very good."

He said that Clinton came from behind and overcame Obama's spending advantage, and that it "represents significant progress."  read more »

The economists are out of touch too.

That was the argument Clinton campaign pollster and strategist Geoff Garin made on a conference call this morning when he addressed a question about whether a gas tax holiday would prompt more gasoline use.  read more »

Not surprisingly, the first words out of Howard Wolfson’s mouth on the Clinton campaign conference call today were about “some recent public polling” that show Hillary Clinton’s strength against John McCain in the general election.

Pollster Geoff Garin then gave a lengthy statement, which began: “The point here is simple. Over the course of the past two weeks, particular since our Pennsylvania victory, there’s been real movement in the polls.”  read more »

The day after the campaign announced Penn's titular demotion, it is not clear yet exactly what influence he has lost.

Marc Ambinder reported that Penn participated this morning on an internal campaign conference call, suggesting the highly plausible possibility that his loss of the right to be called “chief strategist” was more about cauterizing the Colombia mess than empowering Howard Wolfson and Geoff Garin to cut him out of the decision-making loop.  read more »

Time columnist Joe Klein created a stir at the Council on Foreign Relations earlier today when he suggested that "an element of unwitting sabotage" may be behind Bill Clinton's series of apparently off-message comments while campaigning on behalf of his wife.

Klein speculated: "He's worrying, 'Maybe she's going to be a better president than I was'."

He also suggested that Clinton was ambivalent about his wife’s candidacy because, alongside those fears, "Consciously, I think that he sees her [possible] election as president as the final validation of his presidency."  read more »