What Does a Political Director Do in a Campaign? What Don’t They Do?

On September 22nd, Rebecca Pearcey joined Mason Robinson Professor of Public Policy Steven Pearlstein for what would be the third conversation in his First Tuesday series, a sequence of conversations with special guests who bring first-hand experiences in the world of politics. The series is sponsored by the Honors College and the Schar School of Policy and Government

View the full recording.

Keeping in the spirit of the talks, Pearcey shared her insights from the positions of a political director and as a Black woman, helping viewers gain another perspective leading towards the November 2020 election.

Working as a political director “is something different every day,” she said, describing what drew her to her career. “It’s making sure you have a plan if X-Y-Z happens, and you make decisions very quickly. That’s what I like about it.”

“When I was in college, this wasn’t a professional line that I understood or knew about. I took a job straight out of college. I went not knowing anything—and I got the bug. My mission was to go wherever there was good work and find out which candidate I like the best.”

Pearcey started as the Regional Field Director for the 2004 presidential campaign of Richard Gephardt (D). In the following years she directed campaigns including Walmart Watch, Ohio Democrat Ted Strickland’s 2007 successful campaign for governor, Obama’s presidential Ohio campaign, and Democrat John Gregg’s 2016 campaign for governor of Indiana (he lost to Mike Pence). In 2014, she was the Northeast Regional Director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and most recently, in 2020, she was the political director for Elizabeth Warren’s presidential run.

The position of political director is a critical one during a candidate’s campaign, complex and all-consuming, which led Pearlstein to ask, “What don’t you do?”

When Pearcey first began work on the Warren campaign, her job was to “liaise and advise the senator” on matters of public relations and create teams to network and gather support. As the campaign continued, Pearcey saw her job evolve to organizing constituencies, surrogate scheduling, managing delegates, and traveling with her candidate. “It is a lot of everything, it’s what you make it,” she concluded.

In addition to carrying out the extensive tasks as political director, Pearcey has also faced the struggles of breaking into a profession dominated by white men.

“As long as I can remember, when I started becoming senior staff, I was the only Black person in the room and also the only female in the room,” she said. “I’ve made it a point to talk to younger staffers about what the dynamic was like 20 years ago, versus what it is now and how to place yourself in a position where you’re comfortable—where you are heard, and you understand what your power is, and what levers to pull to get the power and make the decisions.”

Since her last campaign, Pearcey has joined the board of the iVote Civil Education Fund, helping launch “an effort to encourage people to vote early, from home, by mail—any of the different ways people can vote since the pandemic.

“Since May, 35 states have changed the laws on what it takes to vote,” she said. “There are literally millions and millions of people who may be faced with new challenges to vote, and so our effort has been focused on making sure people have the tools necessary to get it done this November.”

The next speaker for the First Tuesday series, on September 29 at 9 a.m. EDT, is Rick Wilson, a Republican media strategist as well as co-founder and “creative genius” of the Lincoln Project. The series continues every Tuesday until the November election and is open to all Mason students and staff to sign up and participate.