Blue Hen Battle: Joining Forces

Back in April, Second Rain reported on an event hosted by the University of Delaware featuring Steve Schmidt, former manager of Sen. John McCain's runner-up campaign, and David Plouffe, former manager of then Sen. Barack Obama's successful bid, during which both men shared the opportunity to reflect on some of the intense and sometimes animus battles fought between the two camps during last year's campaign. Both men, while finally outside of the partisan bubble they had inhabited for over a year, had kind things to say about each other, their respective campaigns, and respective former bosses (but they certainly weren't all about hand-holding and eye-gazing).


Both Schmidt and Plouffe, who I was able to meet when the Democratic operative spoke a few weeks back in the Jack Morton Auditorium at GW (and subsequently offered a Blue Hen shoutout before asking him a question about...Steve Schmidt), were both almost-alumni of the heralded Delaware school before leaving their education behind to pursue ultimately successful careers in politics. Recently, both men were able to fulfill their remaining requirements to finally obtain their degrees and are now teaming up to form a new political communications center at UD.

According to CNN's Political Ticker, or the political journalism equivalent of Politics-Lite, "The two political operatives are working together to develop a curriculum combining political science, communication, marketing, sociology, and other subjects."

"It's a privilege to get a chance to work with David and the talented women and men at the University of Delaware to help create a center that will help students study our political system and maybe inspire a few of them to participate in our nations political life," wrote Schmidt.

This is awesome. I'm sure my buddy Nelson is bummed this program wasn't around when he was a freshman at UD.

Plouffe is set to speak to students of his alma mater tonight at 7:30PM, a conversation which will be webcasted live from Mitchell Hall in Newark.

Pictures provided by CNN, University of Delaware

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