Robby Mook is a political strategist who recently rose to fame after leading former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. He worked as a counterpart to Kellyanne Conway. Prior to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Mook had also worked for Howard Dean’s campaign in 2004.
Early Life and Education
Born on December 3, 1979, Robby Mook is the son of Delo and Kathryn Mook. Although born in Sharon, Vermont, he was raised in Norwich. Having been brought up in an intellectual family, Mook was academically bright since a very early age.
Mook went to Hanover High School for early education and joined Columbia University for a BA in Classics.
Career
Just 37 years old now, Mook has attained several feats in his line of career as a political strategist. When he was just a freshman at Columbia, he got a paid internship in Vermont Democratic House Campaign.
Subsequently, Robby landed various local political positions. He was a field director for 2002 Vermont gubernatorial election. Similarly, Mook worked as an assistant field director in 2004 Howard Dean presidential campaign. After losing the nomination, he joined the Democratic National Committee.
In 2008, Mook got affiliated to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. He managed Clinton campaigns in Nevada, Ohio, and Indiana. Although Hillary managed to win in all those states, she wasn’t able to gain the nomination as Barack Obama was on the rise.
Again, in 2016, Robby Mook joined Hillary Clinton as a campaign manager in April 2015. Although he managed to get Clinton through primaries, he was left behind by the Republican counterparts. Reportedly, Mook was paid only around $121,000 – much lower than any other campaign managers.
Personal Life
Robby Mook is a gay and hasn’t married anyone yet. Interestingly, he is the first openly gay campaign manager in the US history.
Trump and Mook
Since they were on the opposing teams, Trump and Mook naturally didn’t have a good relationship. After the intelligence agencies speculated that Russia intervened in the 2016 election, Robby Mook urged the Congress to investigate the matter. He said, “I think (fake news) was a huge problem. I think there’s a lot of things that we need to examine coming out of this. You just named one of them. Congress has got to investigate what happened with Russia here. We cannot have foreign, and foreign aggressors I would argue, intervening in our elections.” These kinds of statements against Russia and himself are not the favorites of President Trump.
Even during the election, Mook repeatedly criticized Trump. Perhaps, that’s what campaign managers are hired to do.
