79 JFK AND BEYOND

Prescription for Success

No one can say Julie Piscitelli MPA 2003 plays it safe. In her first stint as a campaign manager, she chose Capri Cafaro, a 26-year-old woman with no political experience who was running for Congress this year against four other candidates in a Democratic primary in Ohio. Not only did Cafaro’s youth and gender pose challenges in the race, so did the fact that her father pleaded guilty to bribing a congressman. “I was told we were going to lose,” Piscitelli says. “I was brought on to lose.”

In that, she “failed miserably” when her candidate garnered 54 percent of the vote in the March primary. She hopes to do that more often, including in a race she is managing now for Charlie Dooley, a candidate running for county executive in the St. Louis area. If he wins, he would be the first African American elected countywide — another example of a nontraditional candidate embraced by a nontraditional campaign manager.

Based in Washington, DC, Piscitelli established her own political strategy and communications business in early 2001, after serving as a spokeswoman for NARAL Pro-Choice America during the last presidential election. Her clients have included U.S. Rep. Albert Wynn of Maryland, the nonprofit Alliance for Justice, and the Serbian speaker of parliament. It’s a diverse lot, but all turned to her for the same reason, she says.

“As far as I’m concerned, communication is everything — how we relate to our friends and family, to how you deal with reporters and your staff and your bosses,” says Piscitelli. “You have to balance good management with your communication skills, just as you would do in your personal life.”

For her, the political is the personal. She calls herself a political therapist, focusing on shaping her client’s message to the public in the same way she’d shape a message to a family member or friend.

In the Cafaro race, Piscitelli emphasized that her candidate was the first woman from her family to graduate from college, doing so from Stanford at age 19. She hired a Rolling Stone photographer to take shots of the candidate and bought TV ads to introduce her to the voters. She also capitalized on the understanding, according to Piscitelli, that women are viewed as outside the old boy’s network. “As a woman,” she says, “people are able to trust her.”

Yet she learned from former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell at the Kennedy School that women running for office don’t receive as much money as men and are not seen as viable candidates. Piscitelli wants to change that. She previously served on the board of the Women & Politics Institute at American University to inspire women to get involved in politics and government, and she may someday run for office herself. But now, for those who need political treatment, the doctor is in. — LR