Patrick Gaspard Joins Obama Team

From the Washington Post:

Patrick Gaspard, a longtime labor operative, will be the White House political director for President-elect Barack Obama, sources with knowledge of the negotiations confirmed today. Gaspard served as national political director for much of Obama's general election campaign...

Gaspard was the national field director for 'America Coming Together' [ACT] during the 2004 cycle. In October of 2004, St. Louis County Board of Election Commissioners trashed hundreds of faulty voter registrations, most of them collected by voter drive groups like ACT. Many voters registered twice by using variations of their names.

In 2004, the AP reported that ACT under Gaspard had paid convicted felons to canvass homes and solicit private information (including Social Security numbers) from voters as part of its "Get out the vote effort".

In 2007, ACT was fined $750,000 by the FEC for violating election finance rules.

Before joining the Obama campaign, Gaspard had been a registered and current lobbyist for 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East - as well as being its Executive Vice President.

H /T - Red State

"Lobbyists Won’t Find a Job in My White House!"