Obama and Clinton loyalists grapple with Trump recession

Trump’s unexpected win has Democrats coping with a vastly smaller job market for their skills.

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The job market is about to get even more crowded for Washington Democrats, as thousands of Obama appointees join the hundreds of Clinton campaign staffers looking for employment.

There’s rarely been less demand for their services.

The Trump tornado is tearing up post-election planning around the Beltway. It’s not just that those 4,000 administration jobs are no longer available to Hillary for America alumni, or that failed Senate candidates like Russ Feingold and Katie McGinty won’t be able to hire their staff on the Hill. There are also the lobbying firms, trade associations and corporate government affairs offices that are pitching senior Obama aides’ resumes into the round file while scrambling to hire operatives with Republican connections.

It’s insult to injury for a generation of young operatives who are still managing their shock and grief from Hillary Clinton’s loss. And for those who want to fight to keep President Barack Obama’s legacy from being erased, there aren’t a lot of places ready to pay them to do it.

“It feels like there are just thousands of us trying to find a job, and there are no jobs,” said Mira Patel, a longtime Clinton aide who went from her Senate office to the State Department and, starting last summer, her presidential campaign.

Wave elections that wipe out job prospects for one party’s loyalists are an occupational hazard in Washington – it happened to Republicans just eight years ago. But the shock of Trump’s win is what’s making it harder on everyone – both those currently (or about to be) unemployed, and potential employers.

“Clients are all pivoting, and they’re all frankly trying to figure it out just like we all are right now,” said Julian Ha, who heads up the government affairs and trade association practice at the executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles.

“My prediction is that there certainly will be a more robust demand for folks who are from the Republican side of the aisle, and especially [those] close to folks who are now being selected for key positions,” Ha said.

Some Obama staffers looking to parlay their White House pedigree into private sector gigs suffered their own Trump slump immediately after the election.

One administration official said he was deep into negotiations with two tech companies in early November, but after the election, “there was a pretty clear about-face.”

One of the tech companies’ offices got in touch the day after the election “stating that they needed to ‘re-scope the role in light of the results.’” The other company, the official said, was “far less euphemistic in saying we need Republicans, not Democrats.”

That official is, at this point, entertaining some formal job offers, and many others have had good luck finding new jobs, often in Silicon Valley, where many Obama alumni have landed over the past four years. Clinton aides appear to be having a harder time, both emotionally and practically.

“There’s anger, there’s frustration, there’s anxiety, there’s burnout,” said Russ Finkelstein, a managing director at Clearly Next and longtime progressive career guru (including as a founding team member at the lefty jobs board Idealist.org) who has been counseling Clinton alumni.

“People are in shock,” said Anastasia Kessler-Dellaccio, 35, who quit her job at Sister Cities International to run Foreign Policy Professionals for Hillary. Some Clinton campaign workers say they’ve lost their bearings, so rattled they are by the differences in Trump’s values from those represented by Obama and Clinton.

Kessler-Dellaccio added, “I think people, myself included, are trying to figure out, ‘How do I recalibrate my dreams?’”

Not everyone has the financial flexibility to take time to figure that out, forcing some to contemplate leaving Washington and politics behind right as they feel a renewed sense of urgency.

It’s no longer about finding the “perfect fit,” said Patel. “A lot of us are looking for any fit.”

Clinton campaign alumni are still struggling with how to talk about their work.

“Some of them are thinking, ‘Oh, am I going to be judged for having lost?” said Finkelstein. Others worry about sounding tone deaf when they try to highlight their individual accomplishments within the broader operation – though career advisers say that’s exactly what they should do.

“I have two sets of resumes,” said Kessler-Dellaccio. One highlights all her work fundraising and recruiting volunteers for Clinton. But after repeatedly seeing job postings looking for Republican connections, Kessler-Dellaccio says she “quite literally stripped out all of the Hillary stuff” out of her alternate C.V.

She added, “I have friends who even on LinkedIn have removed any Democratic Party alignment because they’re afraid if employers see too much Hillary stuff they’re not going to get a job.”

Even if Clinton had won, her aides acknowledge, competition for administration posts would have been fierce, and it’s not unusual for exhausted foot soldiers to wait for months for opportunities to open up. And losing a job because your boss lost an election is an inherent risk of politics. It happened to Republicans en masse eight years ago, when Obama won 365 electoral votes and Democrats expanded their majorities in both chambers of Congress.

“It was not an easy job market for Republicans in D.C.,” said Joel Scanlon who was the director of strategic initiatives in the waning days of George W. Bush’s White House.

Scanlon and his colleagues had “a better sense that this was coming than the current crowd does. I’m not at all unsympathetic to what people are going through,” he said.

But the warning didn’t make it much easier, he noted. After all, they were out of a job right as the economy was careening into recession. Scanlon, 42, currently a director at the Hudson Institute, said he was “relatively lucky” to be in negotiations for his next job by March.

“I knew some very smart, capable people who were in the job market for quite a long time and not even getting good leads on some things,” he said. “I think D.C. firms kind of overcorrect a little bit probably after each election.”

More seasoned Clinton aides had tried to warn the younger generations who’d spent their whole adulthoods under President Obama that Democratic dominance wasn’t necessarily permanent.

“Never count on a Democratic administration,” Patel recalled being told. “I was like, ‘Oh, come on, this is gonna be great.’”

And now, Democrats have been organizing ways to get down-and-out fellow party members new paychecks.

Kessler-Dellaccio, Finkelstein, and several Obama alumni teamed up to hold a job fair at a new WeWork space near the White House on Dec. 12. About 95 percent of the 500 attendees were Obama appointees or Clinton campaign staff, according to Kessler-Dellaccio. Another event is in the works for early February, along with a webinar and workshops to help people figure out what, exactly, they want to do next.

Google executive Laszlo Block also created a clearinghouse of resumes for Clinton and Obama alumni and encouraged around 100 companies, including Facebook and Netflix, to draw from it, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The White House has also been laying the groundwork for years to help its appointees transition out.

Recent efforts include a program through Georgetown University, called “Future 44,” to help Obama staff prepare (in their downtime) for post-White House life, along with various ongoing programs with outside speakers.

“The president made it a priority to ensure that, throughout his administration, employees had access to professional development resources and tools to help them advance in their careers and transition to new opportunities,” said White House spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine.

Obama is “extremely grateful” to those who’ve worked in his administration, Hoffine added, “including those who are running through the tape with him in these final days.”

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-clinton-loyalists-jobs-233296

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