Rising Stars

Each year Compaigns & Elections' selects its Rising Stars, up-and-comers of the political world.

Some have made their mark by turning losing campaigns into winners, or demonstrating excellence working on direct mail, polling, get-out-the-vote operations, fund raising or political advocacy.

We selected 10 Democrats, 10 Republicans and four others all younger than 35.

You can expect to hear about these Rising Stars in future campaigns. We're betting that they will form the and will form the next generation of standouts in the political consulting industry.

MICHAEL BASSIK (D), 27, is the vice president of Internet marketing for MSHC Partners, Inc, avoter contact firm that offers mail, targeting and Internet marketing services.

Before joining MSHC Partners, he was the director of political advertising at America Online. In his work at AOL and MSHC Partners, Bassik worked on concept of Internet advertising as a key part of political campaigns. He helped launch the first large-scale and successful use of banner advertising to recruit new donors to John Kerry's campaign. During the 2004 election cycle, he implemented Internet advertising campaigns for 50 candidates and organizations, launching animations ad political quizzes as campaign techniques. He also co-founded the Online Coalition to educate bloggers and online activists about their rights under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

Bassik graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with honors in political science and a minor in Spanish. His thesis "The Effectiveness of Political Advertising on the Internet" is a trusted resource for political marketers. Bassik is currently pursuing his J.D. at the American University Washington College of Law.

MORTON BRILLIANT (D), 34, is the campaign manager for Cathy Cox for Governor of Georgia. As communications director for Christine Gregoire for Washington Governor in 2004, the brilliant Brilliant created and executed a message strategy that lasted through the campaign's two recounts and reversed the election's initial outcome, leading to victory 10 weeks after the election. In 1998, Brilliant used Internet communications to overcome a 40-point disadvantage and elect Jim Hodges as governor of South Carolina. He was also the political director for the South Carolina Democratic Party.

Brilliant got a B.A. in classical studies with high honors from Brandeis University and a J.D. with honors from the George Washington University School of Law.

JEFFREY COLEMAN (R), 30, is owner of Churchill Strategies LLC, a political consulting firm based in centeral Pennsylvania. With his firm he has consulted on numerous campaigns relying on traditional grass rootstechniques such as door to door campaigns, town hall forums and a de-emphasis on polling. He has worked for Bill Scranton for Governor and various state House and Senate campaigns.

At 25, Coleman became the youngest member to serve in the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives. In his campaign for the seat, he unseated an 11-year incumbent. Coleman served in the House until 2004 until he left to start his consulting firm.

He has a B.S. from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.

ERIN DELULLO (R), 25, struck out on her own after she learned about fund raising as the director of development for the Patrick Henry Center, a nonprofit educational foundation in Fairfax, Va. There, she oversaw the center's fund raising and helped pay for the center's first book, "Thunder on the Left: An Insider's Report on the Hijacking of the Democratic Party."

Her main projects these days are plotting strategy for the Ken Blackwell for Governor campaign in Ohio and Katherine Harris's run for the U.S. Senate. She'll raise money from conservative individuals and organizations for these two, as well as other clients on the right.

And she's doing this all on her own only a few years after graduating from Shepherd College in West Virginia.

KYLE DEBEER (R), 25, is the executive director of the Wyoming Democratic Party. Since taking over as executive director in 2003, DeBeer has drastically improved the party organization in Wyoming. He worked to reorient the Party as a candidate services organization by modernizing the voter file. In 2004 DeBeer worked to increase contributions to the state party. Throughout the election cycle he increased individual contributions to the Party by 189 percent. The Democratic National Committee has worked to roll out plans instates across the country. DeBeer worked with the political department at the DNC to create a model for the first phase of implementation of the state program. In 2005 he was elected secretary of the Association of State Democratic Executive Directors.

DeBeer has a B.A. in classics, history and politics from Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

ZACH DIETCH (R) is the national field coordinator for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He got his start in politics as a volunteer on the Bush-Cheney'04 campaign as a volunteer. He worked his way up to an intern and became a key member of the campaign team, working on the Election Day operations team. Dietch quickly moved to the Republican National Committee, working as a regional deputy political director until the National Republican Senatorial committee hired him as their national field coordinator. Dietch is also a volunteer firefighter.

Dietch earned his B.A. in political science at the University of Pennsylvania.

BRIAN DONAHUE (R), 30, is the senior vice president of Jamestown Associates, a media and direct mail consulting firm, based in Washington, D.C.

He has management experience on five competitive federal campaigns, including two presidential campaigns. As one of President Bush's youngest state directors in 2004, Donahue was in West Virginia, which gave Bush 13 points over Kerry and doubled his 2000 percentage in a state where Democratic registered voters outnumbered Republicans three to one.

Donahue also managed U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce's 2002 campaign in New Mexico. All but one of the campaigns that he has managed were targeted open seats or challenger races, in places where Republicans were significantly outnumbered. In 2003, he opened the Washington, D.C. office for Jamestown Associates.

Donahue, 30, earned his B.A. in political science from George Washington University and a campaign management certificate from the Campaign Management Institute at American University.

VINCE GALKO (R), 33, we are told "is one of the few people in this business who has earned the trust and admiration from both of Pennsylvania's U.S. senators [Arlen] Spector and [Rick] Santorum."

That alone merits a Gold Star along with a Rising Star. It also got him a job-as manager of Santorum's re-election campaign. Galko's ties to the senator go back to 1994, when he campaigned for him door-to-door at Saint Joseph's University. Two years later, Galko had moved up in a manner of speaking to making cold calls from the Republican National Committee's basement. By 2001, he was running the game back in Pennsylvania for seven GOP appellate judges; each of them won. "Word has it that a couple of '08 White house hopefuls have already contacted Galko about taking on a regional position," a peer wrote. "... If Santorum does get re-elected, Galko will share most of the credit." We would expect nothing less of a star.

AMANDA HYDRO (R), 24, is the executive director of the College Republican National Committee. She managed the Precinct Data Department at the Republican National Committee from 2000 to 2003. While there she also worked on President Bush's first campaign and redistricting. She was a key part of the team that led the youth effort to elect U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., giving the Republican Party the majority in the 2002 mid-term election and winning her the Best Field Representative Award from the College Republican National Committee.

Hydro doesn't just win awards; she has one named after her. Each year, the Amanda Hydro Award is given to a child in grades seven through twelve in Somerset County, N.J., for outstanding leadership and community service.

Hydro received a B.A. in politics from the Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C.

PATRICK KILLEN (R), 26, is the director of communications for the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana in Nevada, a fitting job for his Libertarian Republican philosophies of less government interference and greater personal responsibility. And he does this while pursuing his college degree at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

This Rising Star began reading C & E when he was 17 years old. Two years later, he got his first job as a campaign consultant on a local campaign in his home state of New Mexico. He's been a fixture there among Republicans ever since, whether he's working county or state levels.

In 2004, Killen told his friends and associates that he was gay, a courageous move considering the intense debates over gay marriage and gay rights. As a result, conservative members of his party elected him to represent them at the national convention that year.

JUSTIN LAPATINE (D), 33, is the vice president of Global Strategy Group, a market research and polling firm in New York, N.Y.

Lapatine was a pollster and strategist for Newark mayoral candidates in 2002 and 2006. Since 2002, he has also been a pollster and strategic advisor to Eliot Spitzer, helping to position the famous U.S. attorney as the favorite in the New York 2006 gubernatorial race. He also researched for Henry Cuellar's defeat of incumbent Ciro Rodriguez. Lapatine is skilled at developing campaigns in black and Hispanic communities.

Lapatine received his B.A. from Duke University and his M.A. from Columbia University.

LANCE D. MAGNUM (D), 24, is one of our Rising Stars who left straight politics to go over to the corporate side. He's the manager of policy and political affairs for Capital One Financial Corp., a Fortune 200 company. In between monitoring the financial giant's political interests, he's getting his masters in political management at George Washington University.

Prior to going corporate, Mangum was a pollster for the Feldman Group and worked on Democrat Erskine Bowles' failed 2004 senatorial bid to represent North Carolina (Mangum is a graduate of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, with a B.A. in political science.)

He's consulted, advised or worked on more than 25 political, corporate and issue campaigns in 10 states.

MATTHEW MCMILLAN (D), 25, is the president of BuzzMaker, a new media and online consulting firm in Washington, D.C. BuzzMaker works with advocacy groups, nonprofits, trade associations and corporations.

McMillan, who founded BuzzMaker in 2004, has also worked for the Campaign for America's Future, where, as online content producer, he interviewed top political pundits including Byron York, Robert Greenwald and George Lakoff for podcasts. He has recruited and worked with clients ranging from national organizations and U.S. Senators down to city councilors. He also worked for Jim Crounse, creating direct mail for top Democratic campaigns. Some of his clients for the 2006 cycle include U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M, and Patricia Madrid for U.S. Congress, D-N.M. At the age of 25, he already has two Pollie wins under his belt.

McMillan received his B.A. in political science and history from Columbia University. While at Columbia, McMillan earned the distinction of being named among the top ten debaters in the country.

SUSAN DELIDDO MICHELS (D), 34, is vice president of GMMB, a political advertising and consulting firm with offices in Washington, Los Angeles and Seattle. The Pollie-Award winning consultant centers on developing TV, radio and Internet advertising. She's done for Mark Warner for Governor, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Forward Together PAC. Agraduate of the American University, Michels gets props from her peers for her use of storytelling in campaigns so voters get a fuller, more personal picture of the candidate she's working for. "She has a special ability to use cultural touchstones that voter instantly recognize and connect with," one wrote, "whether it's a banjo tune for Governor Warner's spots or a touching moment between Congressman [Ben] Chandler and his son." Before joining GMMB, she oversaw communications for U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D--Ohio, and Lt. Gov. Lawton Chiles of Florida.

JULIAN MULVEY (D), 34, is the principal of the Julian Mulvey Group, a Democratic media consulting firm.

His accomplishments include winning 11 Pollie awards and serving as media consultant for St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley, who is the first black to hold this high a position in St. Louis County History.

Mulvey served as a media consultant to Paul Hackett, the Democratic Iraq veteran that nearly won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in the most Republican district in Ohio.

Mulvey has worked at Shrum, Devine, Donilon, C-SPAN and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Mulvey got a B.A. in political science from Boston University.

AIMEE NICHOLS (R), 27, is an account executive at Valis & Keelen LLC, a government relations firm in Washington, D.C. that specializes in PAC fund-raising, advocacy and branding representation. In the 2002 and 2004 election cycles, Nichols helped raise more than $30 million in PAC money for congressional candidates and incumbents, with records of 38 to 5 in 2002 and 40 to 5 in 2004. She has also worked at the Investment Company Institute.

In 2002, she worked on the congressional campaigns of Chris Chocola, R-Ind., Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., Tom Feeney, R-Fla., Jim Gerlach, R-Pa., and Katherine Harris, R-Fla. In 2004, she worked on the campaigns of U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis, R-Ky.

Nichols earned her B.A. in English at the University of Maryland at College Park.

ASHLEY O'CONNOR (R), 33, is founder of Red October Productions. It's hard at times to imagine trading a posh, established client like Elizabeth Arden for a bunch of fighting politicians, but that's what Ashley O'Connor did. The media consultant cut her teeth on Madison Avenue, and then left it to work for clients such as Bill William Weld, Bob Ehrlich and the Republican National Committee.

O'Connor started Red October Productions when she was 26 years old and found much work for the Republicans. She got her big break in 2004, when she directed all the production for Bush-Cheney 2004's ads and videos. This year, she's signed on to several GOP gubernatorial campaigns including those for Ehrlich (Md.), Kerry Healey (Mass.) and Bob Riley (Ala.)

KEVIN O'NEILL (N), 27, joined Grassroots Enterprises as a senior client manager. Within months, he shimmied up the ladder to become director of online campaigns.

"He has established a particular expertise in the creative use of blog advertising and blog outreach to spur awareness and viral buzz for a range of clients, including most notably, the American Civil Liberties Union" says his boss, John Hlinko. "He has been at the center of the phenomenal rise of Grassroots Enterprise over the last few years, capped in 2005 by what was the firm's biggest year ever--six Pollie Awards, including four first-place Internet Pollies, more than any other firm." O'Neill knows all about the Pollies; he was the executive director of the awards' creators, the American Association of Political Consultants, before joining Hlinko and Co.

MAX PULSINELLI (N), 32, is the founder of Maximum Impact Public Relations, a public relations and publicity firm which focuses on political books and authors as well as political advocacy organizations.

It is not uncommon for Pulsinelli's publicity campaigns to land books on the New York Times or USA Today's bestseller lists, including Bernard Goldberg's 100 People who are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is #37).

Prior to establishing his own firm, Pulsinelli worked at Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, Griffin Communications and Jack Horner Communications.

Pulsinelli earned his B.A. in communications from the University of Pittsburgh.

FRANK SALAZAR (D) Frank Salazar, 31, campaign manager for Bob Filner for Congress. Salazar jumped into politics feet first when he was elected to the city council in his hometown of Calexico, Calif. From there, he went on to become a presidential appointee to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the Clinton administration. He worked on Vice President Gore's presidential campaign in 2000 as a Hispanic media coordinator and then joined James Carville's firm as an associate. While there, he worked on presidential campaigns in three South American countries.

Currently, Salazar is working on U.S. Re. Bob Filner's re-election to California's 51st District seat.

HEATHER SMITH (N), 30, is the director of Young Voter Strategies, a project of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University that provides candidates, parties, consultants and nonprofits with data on young voters and tools that they can use to mobilize the demographic.

Smith was the national field director for the New Voters Project, the largest nonpartisan grassroots effort in history to register 18- to 24-year-old voters. During the 2004 campaign, Smith trained and managed a staff of 150. They built a coalition of more than 700 businesses, nonprofits and elected officials and recruited more than 4,000 volunteers nationwide. The project registered 349,000 18- to 24-year-olds in its six core states.

Smith earned her B.A. in economics and public at Duke University. She has also studied at Oxford University. She is currently pursuing her masters at George Washington University.

GIOVANNA GRAY TORCHIO (D), 26, is the senior vice president of business development at North Track Media, an integrated strategic communications and media firm in New York City.

Torchio, a deputy finance director for the New York arm of Howard Dean's campaign. On Dean's campaign, Torchio established one of New York City's first low-dollar fund-raising networks, raising high-dollar results of over $1 million for the campaign. Torchio translated that success into her startup political software company I Stand For and had 35 clients in less than a year. She is the youngest board member of the Women's Leadership Forum Network and served as campaign manager for Andrew Rasiej for New York City Public Advocate.

Torchio holds a B.A. in gender and women's studies and history from Connecticut College.

JIM WILSON (N), 34, is the manager of political education programs for the American Medical Association's PAC, where he conducts political education programs to teach political action techniques to the medical community.

From 2001 to 2005, Wilson worked for the information division at the Federal Elections Commission. He provided training on federal campaign finance law to candidates, political parties and political action committees. His work at the FEC made him a sought-after expert in independent expenditures and national and state political party committee regulation. He was an adviser to several state agencies regarding provisions of the McCain-Feingold bill.

Wilson received his B.A. from Georgetown University and a masters and PhD in rhetoric and political communications from the University of Pittsburgh.

RAYMOND ZABORNEY (R), 30, is the campaign manager for Lynn Swann for Governor, R-Pa.

Zaborney worked as executive director for Team 88, Swann's PAC that explored a run for Governor. It raised more than $1.6 million before the former football star even announced his candidacy. Zaborney worked as political director for Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett's successful campaign and managed Chuck Erdman's re-election campaign for County Controller, winning by the largest margin in the county's history, despite being outspent 2.5-1.

Zaborney, 30, attended Bloomsburg University.