Blue and White party chairman Benny Gantz has recruited a veteran Democratic strategist to advise the Blue and White’s campaign for the second election of 2019.
Joel Benenson, 66, was hired by Gantz, Maariv reported Tuesday morning, to advise the Blue and White party’s campaign, with a focus on data analysis.
“Recruiting the services of American polling experts and strategic advisers isn’t a dramatic move,” Blue and White officials told Maariv, adding that “it was done primarily to take advantage of their immense poll analysis database and findings in the field.”
But, the Blue and White party officials emphasized, there are limits to what foreign experts will be able to provide for an Israeli campaign.
“The Israeli voter is different from the American voter, and at the end of the day, the real work has to be done here, in the field.”
Benenson is the CEO of the Benenson Strategy Group, and has in the past worked with a number of corporations and political campaigns – most of them Democratic.
In 1994, Benenson served as the communications director for Mario Cuomo’s gubernatorial campaign.
In 2006, Benenson worked as the chief pollster for the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives, before being tapped to serve as a campaign strategist for both the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns. He later served as an advisor to the Obama White House.
Benenson also served as the chief strategist for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential bid.