Photo by Mark Blevis / courtesy of Markblevis.com
By Joan Shipps
It was a fateful day in Ithaca, New York, when freshman Michael Moschella opened a copy of the Cornell Review.
It was 1998, and the Boston transplant had just enrolled at Cornell to study labor economics. Moschella started reading the innocuously titled student paper hoping to learn about run-of-the-mill college news: upcoming events, administrative policy developments or speaking engagements.
But in the Cornell Review, Moschella had unknowingly picked up an unabashedly far-right publication with a history of making inflammatory statements about race. The paper made headlines beyond campus when it mocked African-American linguistic studies in a parody editorial rife with racial stereotypes. The outlet, founded in 1984 (with editing support from Cornell alumna and conservative firebrand Ann Coulter), prides itself on stoking controversy. “We do not apologize” is the publication’s forthright motto.
In the issue Moschella happened to be perusing shortly after his arrival on campus, the paper was deriding the school’s ethnicity-focused residential communities, called program houses, using particularly provocative language. The article was tantamount to a “racist attack of minorities on campus,” says Moschella. (While the article that irked Moschella is no longer on the Cornell Review’s website, there’s plenty from the paper criticizing the school’s minority communities. Mocking the Ujamaa Residential College, which celebrates the African diaspora, the paper has quipped, “‘Ujamaa’ is a Swahili word that roughly translates to ‘How Stella Got Her Groove Back.’” The paper also warned of “racial pimps” promoting diversity at Cornell and cautioned that minority programming constituted a “hatred of whites.”)
Moschella was alarmed by the content of the newspaper and lamented that there was no political entity on campus to speak of that could systematically challenge policy ideas the Cornell Review was circulating. While college Republicans numbered in the hundreds and held regular meetings, Moschella describes Democrats at Cornell as being “few” at the time and “not organized.” (A recurring theme in Moschella’s stories: It bothers him when Democrats are not organized.)
“I have a contribution to make,” Moschella thought to himself, and he set about developing a Democratic infrastructure at Cornell. “I wanted to create a culture where racist crap isn’t just something you can push out,” he says.
In mobilizing Cornell’s Democratic student body, Moschella earned himself the nickname Tammany. He was so aggressive in building his organization that friends likened him to bosses of Tammany Hall, the Democratic political machine that dominated New York power structures for more than 150 years.
Moschella reports that by the time he graduated, the number of engaged Democrats at Cornell was up significantly, the number of active college Republicans was down and the Cornell Review had folded. (The paper’s publication, however, has since been revived.)
Thus Moschella established himself as a formidable political organizer, a talent on which he launched a successful career.
In 2002, the newly minted graduate marched into Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Robert Reich’s campaign headquarters and asked, “How can I help?” Moschella ended up steering Reich’s youth outreach strategy with an emphasis on online outreach. At the time, Reich’s digital presence was cutting-edge in the campaign sphere: His email list had an unheard of 8,000 people on it, Moschella says.
Reich lost his bid for governor, but Moschella’s tenure as a campaign operative was only getting started.
Today, Moschella is a 36-year-old resident of Alexandria and is one of the most sought-after organizers in American politics. His list of accomplishments is impressive—and long.
Moschella currently runs the Organizing Center, an online hub he created to help politically minded entities develop cutting-edge organizing strategies. He is also the vice president for innovation at DKC, the most powerful public relations agency in the country, according to the New York Observer. At DKC, he oversees the firm’s organizing, data, targeting and technology consulting.
Additionally, Moschella is a board member of New Leaders Council, an organization he founded that runs half-year training institutes for young civic entrepreneurs in over 40 cities across the country. He co-chairs the Democratic Municipal Officials’ Political Council, the lead strategic body for electing city- and county-level Democratic officials, and serves on the boards of the Netroots Foundation, Democratic Gain and the New American Leaders Project, all policy-oriented organizations with Democratic leanings.
Lefty credentials aside, Moschella isn’t a dyed-in-the-wool partisan. “The problem with Democrats is that they can be arrogant,” Moschella says, describing what he sees as Republican advantages in the online political organizing sphere. He would like to see political practitioners learn from one another, regardless of ideological affiliation. And indeed, he has worked with, and for, effective leaders of all political stripes.
Previously, Moschella was the vice president at NationBuilder, the digital platform of choice for countless political campaigns on both sides of the aisle, including Donald Trump’s Republican run for president. Moschella’s tenure at NationBuilder earned him recognition from Campaigns & Elections magazine as one of the 50 top campaign influencers in America.
Moschella has also been the political director at the Truman National Security Project and the Center for National Policy, where he was as a trainer and political adviser on national security and foreign policy issues for hundreds of political candidates. And Moschella cut his teeth running and advising election campaigns, including one for Tim Mahoney, who won an unlikely Democratic seat in Congress from Florida in 2006. (Moschella admits winning that race was made easier after the Republican incumbent, former Rep. Mark Foley, became embroiled in a now-infamous sex scandal involving congressional pages.)
In a part of the country saturated with would-be political operatives, Moschella is the real deal. In a lunch meeting shortly after the Associated Press declared Hillary Clinton the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, Moschella’s phone kept going off with requests from acquaintances who want appointments in the next presidential administration. “I’ve got about 10 people asking me for jobs right now,” Moschella says between text messages. He’s no Clinton hiring authority, but Moschella is connected enough that colleagues trust him—and ask him—to get them in touch with people who are.
In an earlier interview, Moschella had to cut the meeting short to link up with the creator of a presidential election-themed variation of the board game Cards Against Humanity. (Make Card Games Great Again! is the 2016 Election Game’s cheeky motto. In highlighting its commercial launch, Forbes described the game as one that could “bring together both sides of the aisle in the spirit of mutually exchanged snark and colorful commentary.”)
Another Moschella interview session ended when the political communications expert had to dart off to a training session he was running at the Washington Center, a leadership development facility for budding young operatives across the ideological spectrum. For several weeks, Moschella was just plain hard to get in touch with. He had communications training to conduct in Kentucky and an online political organization to help get off the ground in Australia.
Moschella’s professional talents could have landed him anywhere in the country. Indeed, he’s settled at points in his career in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. He maintains ties to the Boston area and takes semiregular trips out to Las Vegas, where his parents are spending their sunny retirement after careers spent teaching school in New England.
But Moschella has made a home for himself in Alexandria, and he likes it here. In a word, Moschella describes Northern Virginia as amazing.
“It’s historic,” Moschella says. “Being from Boston, I like places that are built in the 1700s.”
Explaining that he enjoys places that are “steeped in revolutionary history,” Moschella draws parallels between his New England birthplace and the Northern Virginia region he lives in and has come to love. “Massachusetts and Virginia, as states, were determined to fight off the British,” Moschella says excitedly, emphasizing the former colonies’ outsized role in founding America. “They were the California and New York of their day.”
Citing the legacies of George Washington and Paul Revere, Moschella says, “It’s awesome to wake up in the place these people lived.”
As for neighboring D.C., where much of Moschella’s work is based? The political operative likes the city just fine but doesn’t hesitate to poke fun at it either. “D.C. is the swamp they sent John Adams to because they didn’t like John Adams,” Moschella says, referencing the second president’s service to the Continental Congress on behalf of Massachusetts in the 1770s. (Incidentally, Moschella is prodigious in his ability to recollect and reference details about 18th-century American political history.)
In the modern era, Moschella says he appreciates Virginia for its “global outlook” and for being “defense-oriented.” Like many Northern Virginians, Moschella has an active duty service member for a neighbor. He likes that, Moschella tells me.
And what does he do when he’s not trying to shape public policy? Moschella confesses that being a workaholic takes up most of his time. “Organizing is highly entertaining,” he says. He likens professional travel to being on vacation.
But he does take time out to appreciate and engage in athletics. Like politics, Moschella theorizes, sports “attracts competitive people.” He currently plays on three amateur softball teams. “I love competition in general,” he declares enthusiastically. And no sport is dearer to his heart than baseball.
“Baseball is the most finely tuned, beautiful sport that has been created in the history of mankind,” Moschella says, with some passion. Rarely without a Red Sox hat in his possession, Moschella still holds an abiding affection for the hometown team of his youth. Half the time, he makes it to spring training to watch the Red Sox gear up for the season.
The Nationals, however, excite Moschella too. As of this writing, he hadn’t been to a Nationals game yet this season but was planning on making it to the D.C. ballpark before too long. Watching baseball is a big way that he decompresses. And with election season in full swing, the quasi-obsessive political operative is in need of the occasional break.
Which brings us to the subject of meat. Moschella enjoys grilling as a way to unwind. Over a lunch of cheeseburgers and french fries (with Old Bay) at Big Board in Washington, D.C., Moschella opined about how the politics of meat fit in with his work organizing voters and activists around the country.
Moschella is concerned that Democratic elites in Washington live lifestyles so foreign to voters around the country that they risk alienating America’s working class, who are the majority of American voters. Though he swears he holds no grudges against vegetarians personally, Moschella does employ vegetarianism as a proxy for elitism, at least among the liberal political operatives.
One way Moschella attempts to combat elitism among the ranks of the politically likeminded is, if not to mock vegetarians outright, then to make a spectacle of how much he enjoys animal flesh.
“Apparently the public thinks granola is way healthier than it is. I’ve always been suspect … granola lacks meat,” Moschella recently posted on Facebook, linking to an article comparing popular perceptions of food items with their actual nutritional merits. Another social media musing from Moschella: “God bless Nevada rest stops. Bacon soda!” (Moschella’s colleagues have quoted him as saying, “Stop plant cruelty; eat meat for lunch today!” and “I sent and received 252 emails today, which is not bad considering I spent a large part of the day grilling meat.”)
Why the public displays of carnivorous affection? “Bacon is delicious,” Moschella says, explaining that his gentle needling of vegetarians is how he reminds fellow left-wingers to be mindful of their cultural peculiarities and appreciative of the cultural habits of others.
All mockery aside, Moschella wants Democrats to win more elections, he says. More broadly, Moschella has the following wisdom to offer humanity, regardless of dietary or political preferences: “Be more inclusive,” Moschella says. “Create opportunity for more Americans regarding capital, education and health care.”
Toward the end of his final interview, Moschella finishes his burger and hurries off to conduct a communications training session in downtown D.C. He says, “I never stop moving.”
(November 2016)