Communicating Hard Ideas: Behind the Scenes with a Former White House Political Director

IOP 2017 Fall Residential Fellow Yohannes Abraham

Special Guest: David Simas, CEO of the Obama Foundation and former White House Director of Political Strategy and Outreach

Wednesday, 18 October 2017, 4:15-5:45 p.m.

You can’t get anything done if the public doesn’t understand what you’re trying to do. This entails translating complex policy decisions into terms that can garner popular understanding and support. Our guest for this session, David Simas, ran that process for President Obama for years, playing a key role in every communications effort of the second term. We will look back at the past phases of the Affordable Care Act, which will give us a chance to explore the differences among how a White House organizes around a legislative fight, an internal management or technical challenge, and a mass mobilization priority.

David Simas, CEO of the Obama Foundation and former White House Director of Political Strategy and Outreach. Simas previously served as Director of Opinion Research for the 2012 Obama-Biden reelection campaign.