Be sure to check out Ryan Lizza's post-election piece in the New Yorker, Gaspard is mentioned by name only in passing but his importance as the campaign's Political Director is hard to understate.
Gaspard has been the Political Director for SEIU's New York based local 1199. The local has some 350,000 members and stretches from New York down to Washington D.C. and Baltimore. To say that 1199 is a powerhouse in New York state politics is to understate their importance by several degrees of magnitude. Their political operation is deep, their influence is vast and their organization is the envy of the rest of labor movement. I've had some personal experience with 1199 political operatives and they are an impressive bunch.
One shouldn't understate the importance of having someone with Gaspard's background running the political shop in the White House. While many progressives have mixed emotions about some of the staffing and Cabinet positions thus far the appointment of Gaspard is one that we can all rally around.
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