David Sirota - Political Career

Political Career

Sirota's career in political campaigns began when he became a research director for Illinois State Senator Howard Carroll's unsuccessful run for U.S. Representative in Illinois's 9th congressional district in the 1998 election; Carroll lost in the Democratic primary to J. B. Pritzker and Illinois State Representative Jan Schakowsky. Sirota then became a fundraiser for Joe Hoeffel in his first successful campaign for the House of Representatives in Pennsylvania's 13th congressional district.

In 1999, Sirota served as deputy campaign manager for Philadelphia mayoral candidate Dwight E. Evans, who is currently a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, representing the 203rd District (Philadelphia County). Sirota was fired after being linked to a bogus Web site apparently intended to hurt a rival candidate.

Later he moved to Washington, D.C. and worked in the political department of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). His next job was as press aide and then spokesperson for Bernie Sanders, the independent at-large U.S. Representative from Vermont who describes himself as a "democratic socialist".

Sirota worked as spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee. While a fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research and advocacy group, he created its Progress Report.

In 2003 Newsweek profiled Sirota as a "political operative" skilled at "hacking out a daily barrage of anti-Bush media clips, commentary, and snappy quotes" who made "guerrilla attacks on the Bush administration" and who was "well schooled in the art of Washington warfare." According to the article, Sirota's main weapons were computer emails; Sirota was described as the "Internet child of the Clinton War Room generation." Former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta was quoted about Sirota: "I just saw he had an eye for critique and the instinct for the jugular." Sirota unearthed an embarrassing comment which Colin Powell had made two years earlier to the effect that "Iraq posed no threat to its neighbors, and possessed no 'significant capability' in weapons of mass destruction;" Sirota made Powell's statements more widely known. Reporters pounced, and it became a public relations blow to the Bush administration. Sirota was credited with having revealed that $87 billion for Iraq could have been used to erase huge state deficits at home, a fact that was repeated by Democrats nationwide.

He served as a senior strategist for Brian Schweitzer's unsuccessful 2000 Senate campaign and successful 2004 gubernatorial campaign. In September 2006, Sirota worked as a political consultant for Ned Lamont's U.S. Senate campaign. Lamont defeated Joe Lieberman in the primary, but Lieberman ran as an independent and defeated Lamont in the November election. In 2008, Sirota was co-chair of the Progressive Legislative Action Network (now renamed the Progressive States Network). He was a senior fellow at the Campaign for America's Future.