Hillary looks confident with her campaign in Robby Mook’s hands

This Thursday, CU for Hillary Clinton was paid a visit by the presidential candidate’s very own campaign manager, Robby Mook. A Columbia alum, Mook returned to his alma mater to provide insight on behind-the-scenes campaign work and offer his support for the club on campus. We sent Staff Writer Mia Lindheimer to check out the active political scene. 

Robby Mook was the perfectly relatable politician. With many years volunteering at campaign offices (including two years for Bernie Sanders) and a Columbia degree under his belt, he moved up the ranks until he ended up where he is now: managing Hillary’s presidential campaign. On top of all this, he is blazing a trail as the very first openly gay campaign manager. After a few introductions and a plug for opportunities to volunteer or intern at Hillary’s Brooklyn campaign headquarters, he jumped right into some “I was just like you,” story time. He reminisced of a time when Lerner was brand-new, and he was sitting in a room just down the ramp from where we were, watching a politician speak, just like he was speaking in front of us.

He talked about how, on his subway ride up here, he was reflecting on his time at Columbia; a time when Bush was president, the aftermath of 9/11 was being dealt with, the war with Iraq was quickly approaching, and student loans were newly privatized. He emphasized how scared he was of dealing with another Republican in the White House. “I’ve committed my career since leaving Columbia to Democratic campaigns,” he said, “because things were gonna get a lot worse if we left a Republican in the White House.”

When asked about his career, Mook admitted that he found politics extremely draining in reality. But as he puts it, the thing was that most of the careers you find in New York were going to be draining as well as unfulfilling. Politics, however, left him with a feeling of accomplishment. Emphasizing his point of civil duty and action yet again, he left the curious audience member with a bit of advice: “I’ve realized… this stuff matters.”

Other questions included “How are you planning to beat Bernie?” and “What kind of grassroots campaign efforts is Hillary making?” which Mook danced around with anecdotes as well; speaking not about an actual strategy to beat Bernie, but how really any Democrat is better than a Republican – “just watch the debates”. And he emphasized there were, actually, several low cost events for Hillary happening in the NYC area (we’re interested in knowing if Hillary has attended any), and that 91% of donations were under $100.

Bringing it back to his time at Columbia, he answered a question about his shift as Treasurer for the CU Dems, filling out tons of vouchers and going to “What’s the name of the building that looks like a chapel but isn’t? Oh, Earl Hall!” – to attend all sorts of campaign efforts and listen to tons of influential speakers (apparently back then they didn’t all speak at Lerner). It was then thathe realized he needed to help with the effort to get a Democrat into office instead of a Republican.

“I realized then, wow, I really need to get involved in politics,” he announced, hoping that by the end of his talk some of us would feel the same. He reminded us that this election would be a historic one, and that they needed our help. While I didn’t experience the same cathartic feelings of civil obligation he did so many years ago, it was clear that his story worked magic most of the other attendees, who rushed to speak with the woman in charge of managing interns and student involvement at Hillary’s campaign office as soon as the Q & A was over.

Hillary Looking Ready courtesy of Wikimedia Commons