Gallego builds political team ahead of Sinema showdown

[JoeOtterbein]

Politico

The congressman appears unbowed by the Senator’s party shift.

By HOLLY OTTERBEIN

01/05/2023 07:51 AM EST

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is taking new steps to build a Senate campaign-in-waiting, signing on a pollster, interviewing paid media firms, and pulling in veterans from Sens. John Fetterman, Mark Kelly, and Raphael Warnock’s teams.

Gallego’s most recent moves, first shared with POLITICO, include hiring a finance director: Danny Carroll, who previously worked for Kelly’s reelection campaign in 2022.

It is, in part, a gesture of defiance directed at Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), whose recent switch in party registration to independent served as an implicit warning to Democrats that if they ran against her they risked splitting the vote and handing the seat to the Republicans.

Gallego, a Marine combat veteran who has built a reputation as an unabashed progressive, has made clear he’s been unswayed by Sinema’s moves. The congressman has also enlisted Chuck Rocha, a former top aide to Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, as a senior adviser. Rocha will be tasked with, among other things, spearheading and overseeing Gallego’s Latino outreach effort, a critical element in the battleground state of Arizona where a third of the population is Hispanic.

snip

more at link

[msongs]

1. getting his text spam and Im in Hawaii

[Just A Box Of Rain]

2. "Sanders adviser was convicted of union embezzling"

A consultant for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign was convicted of embezzling money from a labor union three years ago, after he was caught stealing funds from the United Steelworkers, according to court records.

Chuck Rocha, whose firm Solidarity Strategies has brought in $204,000 from the Sanders campaign, was hired to extend the Vermont senator’s reach into the Latino community. Court and Labor Department records claim that he used the union’s money to buy Stanley Cup Finals tickets and pay for golf trips to Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Florida.

Rocha pleaded guilty in 2013 to one felony count of union embezzlement for stealing funds from the United Steelworkers union in 2008 and 2009, when he was its political director. He also “acknowledged responsibility for the other 17 counts,” according to the Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards. His plea deal barred him from working as an officer or agent at a labor organization until 2026.

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/bernie-sanders-union-embezzle-campaign-consultant-218567

Maybe not the best move, on a variety of levels.