Political Quotes

“Mark Siegel was born in 1946 in Brooklyn, NY, and has spent more than five decades as one of the Democratic Party's most versatile and enduring figures, serving at various points as a strategist, speechwriter, academic, and international democracy advocate. Siegel attended public schools in Brooklyn before earning his undergraduate degree from Brooklyn College in 1967. He went on to Northwestern University, where he completed both a master's degree in 1968 and a Ph.D. in political science in 1972, focusing on elections, party reform, and the Presidential nominating process. His entry into national politics came during the reform-minded era of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Democratic Party was undergoing profound organizational and ideological change. Siegel served as a legislative assistant to Senator Hubert Humphrey from 1971 to 1972 and was chief strategist for Humphrey's 1972 Presidential campaign. He later served as political director of the 1976 Democratic National Convention and coordinated the 'Draft Ted Kennedy' movement in 1980, roles that placed him squarely at the center of the party's most consequential internal battles of the era. He also served as an elected at-large member of the Democratic National Committee, DNC, for more than a decade and participated in the commissions that shaped Presidential nominating rules, leaving a durable mark on the party's institutional structure.”