Contributor

Jason Stanford

Democratic strategist and writer

Jason Stanford got into politics because he wanted to be a spy. He majored in Russian at Lewis & Clark College. Unfortunately, (well, just for his career), the Cold War ended while he was in college, and the job market for Russian-speaking spies dried up. So in 1992 Jason spent his last semester in Moscow and landed two jobs in journalism. In one, he led a partially successful strike of foreign workers against a Russian boss. In the other, for the Moscow bureau of the Los Angeles Times, he uncovered the diversion of U.S. economic aid to Boris Yeltsin’s political party.

After two years of long, bitter winters and odd career choices, Jason moved to Texas and went to work for Gov. Ann Richards’ re-election campaign against George W. Bush. As a political consultant, he has worked on more than 200 campaigns in 41 states. His clients have included 25 Members of Congress, three Governors, Fortune 500 corporations, the AFL-CIO, and the National Abortion Rights Action League, among many others. At last count, only two of his clients have lost their elective offices due to embarrassing sex scandals. Jason was named a Rising Star by Campaigns & Elections magazine in 2002 and was singled out by the Dallas Morning News for managing the Democratic campaign for Governor that exceeded expectations against Rick Perry in 2006.

Jason has taught seminars at several Campaigns & Elections training conventions, the national convention of the American Association of Political Consultants as well as for the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Berlin. He has also spoken to students at several schools and universities across the country.

Several national media sources have featured Jason’s views on negative campaigning and modern politics, including NPR’s “All Things Considered” and “To the Point,” CNN Money, the Fox News Channel, Al Jazeera English, Late Night Live on ABC Australia, Columbia Radio News, Jane Magazine, Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, the Christian Science Monitor, the National Journal, the New York Times, the National Journal, Australian Magazine, and FHM. He has been profiled in Politico, the Houston Chronicle, in a locally syndicated column by Dave McNeely, and in Wayne Slater’s column in the Dallas Morning News. Jason is a semi-regular contributor of opinion pieces to POLITICO: Arena, the Austin American-Statesman and the Texas Tribune. He has been a frequent talk show guest on KRLD, the Dallas CBS radio affiliate, and “Inside Texas Politics,” the Sunday morning news show on Dallas’ ABC affiliate. He has written extensively on politics, contributing an essay called “Balancing Discretion with Glasnost” to Ronald A. Faucheux anthology Winning Elections: Political Campaign Management, Strategy, and Tactics (Campaigns & Elections 2003), as well as articles in various trade publications.

Excerpts from interviews have appeared in several books, including BUSH’S BRAIN: HOW KARL ROVE MADE GEORGE W. BUSH PRESIDENTIAL (Wiley, 2003), a best-selling biography of Karl Rove by James Moore and Wayne Slater, HOUSE OF BUSH, HOUSE OF SAUD: THE SECRET RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE WORLD’S TWO MOST POWERFUL DYNASTIES (Simon & Shuster, 2004), and MACHIAVELLI’S SHADOW: THE RISE AND FALL OF KARL ROVE (Rodale, 2008).

He also received billing for appearing in the feature-length documentary about the 2006 Texas gubernatorial campaign “Along Came Kinky: A Texas Jewboy For Governor.”

Jason is the co-author of ADIOS MOFO: WHY RICK PERRY WILL MAKE AMERICA MISS GEORGE W. BUSH (2011) with James Moore.