Weekly Featured Profile – David Kusnet

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DavidKusnet

David Kusnet

David Kusnet works for the Tony Podesta’s Washington D.C. lobbying firm the Podesta Group.

Kusnet is “an accomplished author and a former presidential speechwriter, has extensive experience creating speeches, reports, and opinion pieces, as well as authoring or co-authoring five books. David works with clients to craft compelling messages and develop strategic plans. He also contributes to research projects and other written materials for the firm.”

David Kusnet was Chief Speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton and wrote for former presidential candidates Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. During the Clinton administration, Kusnet also did consulting work for the Department of Labor, the Health Care Financing Administration, the Census Bureau, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the United States Information Agency and other agencies. From 1985 through 1991, he was Vice President for communications of People For the American Way.

Long-time Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) supporter, then member, former AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was a national health care adviser to Bill Clinton in 1992. His book, America Needs a Raise, was ghosted by Kusnet,

Kusnet was an original supporter of DSA’s parent organization Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, in the early 1970s.

The original Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee publication was called Newsletter of the Democratic Left. Those listed as helping produce the October 1973 issue were David Bensman, Henry Bayer, Gretchen Donart, David Gaberman, Tom Kramer, Jon Ratner, Ronnie Steinberg Ratner, Mark Schaeffer, Nancy Shier and David Kusnet.

More than 1,200 people attended the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee initiated Democratic Agenda Conference held November 16-18, 1979, at the International Inn and Metropolitan AM Church in Washington, D.C. The conference focused on “corporate power” as the key barrier to “economic and political democracy,” concepts many Democratic Agenda participants defined as “socialism.”

The Democratic Agenda meetings attempted to develop “anti-corporate alternatives” through influencing the direction of the Democratic Party during the period leading to the July 1980 Democratic National Convention in New York.

David Kusnet moderated the workshop on “The Media and Social Change.”

As late as 1987, Kusnet sent greetings to Chicago Democratic Socialists of America’s annual Debs Dinner event.

He has also continued to contribute to In These Times, a Chicago based journal founded by the radical Institute for Policy Studies and closely affiliated to Democratic Socialists of America.

In 1996, David Kusnet was one of the original 130 founders of Campaign for America’s Future, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies and Democratic Socialists of America, which runs the huge annual “progressive” love fest in Washington D.C., the America’s Future Now gathering.

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