Robert Creamer

Robert Creamer is an American political consultant, community organizer, and author. He is the husband of congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, the Representative for Illinois's 9th congressional district. His firm, Democracy Partners, works with progressive electoral and issue campaigns and has 32 partners located throughout the United States.

He has been a progressive strategist and political organizer for over 50 years, beginning during the Civil Rights and anti Vietnam War movements of the 1960s. He worked as an organizer with Saul Alinsky's last major project in Chicago. Later he founded and then led Illinois's largest coalition of progressive organizations and unions for twenty-three years. Creamer became a political consultant in 1997, and served as a consultant to the Democratic National Committee during the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Presidential election campaigns.

Creamer was born in 1947. He graduated from Duke University in 1969, writing his thesis, "Duke Employees Local 77: Confrontation over Impartial Arbitration of Grievances", about the AFSCME Local 77 union. He later did graduate work in Ethics and Society at the University of Chicago.

During his high school years, Creamer lived in Shreveport, Louisiana where be became involved in the civil rights movement. At Duke, he expanded his activity as a student activist organizing for civil rights, ending the Vietnam War, and economic justice.

Creamer helped organize "the Duke Vigil" after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.. The silent "Vigil", which ultimately included thousands of students, demanded that Duke increase the pay of its mainly African American non-academic employees, take steps leading to the recognition of their union (Local 77 of AFSCME), and that the President of the University withdraw from the all-white Hope Valley Country Club. Soon after it began these demands were bolstered by a strike of the non-academic employee union and many in the Duke faculty. Four days after the Vigil began, the University Administration came to an agreement with the demonstrators that ultimately met the protester's demands. Creamer served as Chair of the Vigil Strategy Committee.

Community organizing and political consultancy

Creamer began his organizing career in 1970 working with Chicago's Citizen Action Program (CAP), the last project of community organizer Saul Alinsky. During his tenure, CAP successfully campaigned to reduce the sulfur dioxide in Chicago's air by almost two-thirds and stopped a major urban expressway. Creamer founded the Illinois Public Action Council (later known as Illinois Citizen Action) in 1974, a statewide coalition of progressive organizations that included unions, farm groups, senior citizen organizations, community groups, consumer advocates, environmental and peace organizations. It became Illinois's largest consumer advocacy organization, advocating for lower utility rates, environmental concerns, and legislation benefiting senior citizens. In addition to conducting issue mobilization campaigns to promote progressive policies in Springfield and Washington, it established a political committee that supported progressive candidates. The organization led a national shift of grass roots citizen organizations into electoral politics. At its height the organization was a substantial presence in Illinois politics. It ultimately had offices in five cities, 130 organizational affiliates and 150,000 individual members, across Illinois. Creamer directed the organization for 23 years.

In 1997, Creamer co-founded the Strategic Consulting Group, a political consulting firm that works with issue campaigns. His clients have included MoveOn.org, Americans United for Change, and USAction. He organized a successful campaign to stymie the privatization of Social Security. He has acted as a consultant for campaigns geared towards ending the Iraq War, enacting comprehensive immigration reform, and passing universal health care legislation. Creamer has worked on numerous Democratic Party campaigns.

During the Obama Administration Creamer worked closely with the White House to coordinate the effort to mobilize support for the Iran nuclear agreement, pass the Affordable Care Act, mobilize support for Obama nominees to the Supreme Court, and pass the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Strategic Consulting Group, led by Creamer, and other progressive consultants across the country organized into a larger group practice of political consulting firms, forming Democracy Partners in 2011

Creamer spoke at the 2010 America's Future Now Conference. Creamer signed The Progressive Agenda to Combat Income Inequality, an initiative launched by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on May 12, 2015.

To document the history of community organizing during the 20th Century in the United States, the Center for Community Change created the Community Organizer Genealogy Project. Brown University maintains this archive, which includes an interview with Creamer concerning his work and career.

Bank fraud and failure to pay withholding tax convictions

On March 11, 2004, Creamer, then the former executive director of the Illinois Public Action Fund, was indicted in federal court on 16 counts of bank fraud involving three alleged check-kiting schemes in the mid-1990s, leading several banks to experience temporary shortfalls of at least $2.3 million. Though the check kiting was widely reported in 1997, the Justice Department did not seek an indictment until 7 years later. In August 2005, Creamer pleaded guilty to one count of failure to collect $1,892 in withholding tax and one count of bank fraud, for writing checks with insufficient funds. All of the money was immediately repaid from the organization's receivables. His wife, Jan Schakowsky was not accused of any wrongdoing, although she served on the organization's board during the time the crimes occurred, and signed the IRS filings along with her husband. The U.S. district judge noted that Creamer was not a typical bank fraud defendant and that he had no intention of causing a loss. He went on to note that no one suffered "out of pocket losses," and Creamer acted not out of personal greed but in an effort to keep his community action group going without cutting programs, though prosecutors argued that Creamer paid his own $100,000 salary with fraudulently obtained funds. More than 200 people wrote letters of support on Creamer's behalf, including U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Cook County Clerk David Orr, consultant David Axelrod, and Rev. Jesse Jackson.

On April 5, 2006, Creamer was sentenced to five months in prison and 11 months of house arrest. Creamer served his five-month incarceration at the Federal Correction Institute in Terre Haute, Indiana and was released on November 3, 2006.

Feud with Glenn Beck

In December 2009, conservative Fox News host Glenn Beck criticized Creamer for accompanying his wife, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, to a November 2009 state dinner at the White House (the same dinner was noted in the media for its security breaches). On his show, Beck highlighted Creamer's convictions and called Creamer's book a "prison manifesto", claiming that it had been the basis for the Affordable Care Act. Creamer later retorted that "[t]his is a man who lies about everything" and called Beck a part of a "new McCarthyist movement of the far right."

Project Veritas videos

In October 2016, activist James O'Keefe's Project Veritas Action released hidden-camera videos showing Creamer and others who worked for firms hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign engaging in conversations about voter registration. The videos have together garnered over 12 million views as of October 2016. One clip in the video shows Creamer meeting with an undercover activist posing as potential donor. After the actor suggests finding a way around voter registration laws, Creamer responds "my fear is that someone would decide that this is a big voter fraud scheme."

They also discussed using operatives in Donald Duck costumes to remind voters that Donald Trump had not released his tax returns, and referred to the scheme as something Clinton wanted. A subordinate seemingly discussed tactics for baiting supporters into violence at Trump rallies.

As a result of the video, Creamer announced he was stepping back from his firm's contract with the Democratic National Committee. Creamer's Democracy Partners released a statement on October 18, 2016:

Our firm has recently been the victim of a well-funded, systematic spy operation that is the modern-day equivalent of the Watergate burglars. The plot involved the use of trained operatives using false identifications, disguises and elaborate false covers to infiltrate our firm and others, in order to steal campaign plans, and goad unsuspecting individuals into making careless statements on hidden cameras. One of those individuals was a temporary regional subcontractor who was goaded into statements that do not reflect our values.

Creamer described the contractor's statements in the video as "unprofessional and careless hypothetical conversations" and said that the schemes discussed had not taken place. Former interim democratic chairperson Donna Brazile similarly said, "We do not believe, or have any evidence to suggest, that the activities articulated in the video actually occurred."

Trump senior communications adviser Jason Miller said in a statement, "In a totally disqualifying act that is a violent threat to our democracy, Hillary Clinton directly involved herself in inciting violence directed at Trump supporters." The statement demanded an investigation into the matter.

The Clinton campaign said that Project Veritas has "been known to offering misleading video out of context." They denied that the Donald Duck costumes were Clinton's idea, stating that:

While Hillary Clinton can't claim credit for coming up with a duck to highlight how Donald Trump is refusing to release his tax returns, she certainly was amused watching him ride up and down Trump Tower's escalator.

In June 2017, Creamer, and Democracy Partners filed a lawsuit against O'Keefe and his organization, Project Veritas, seeking a million dollars in damages for various violations of DC and Federal law. The case is currently pending in Federal Court in Washington, DC.

Publications

Creamer is a published author and regularly contributes his political commentary in published articles. In 2007, he published Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, which outlined Creamer's framework for a new progressive political strategy.

The following are a selected collection of Creamer's recent contributions to articles and blog posts as sole author, joint author, or contributor:

Creamer is also a regular contributor to HuffPost. The following is a selection of his most prominent contributions:

Creamer was previously married to Day Piercy. He married Jan Schakowsky in 1980. She has served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois's 9th congressional district since 1999. Schakowsky and Creamer have three children and six grandchildren. They live in Evanston, Illinois.