Quick Facts
Biography
Stanley Bernard "Stan" Greenberg (born May 10, 1945) is a leading Democratic pollster and political strategist. He is a founding partner at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQR), a Washington D.C. headquartered political research and campaign company, that is closely affiliated with the Democratic Party. Stan Greenberg has advised the campaigns of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry, as well as hundreds of other candidates and organizations in the United States, Latin America, Europe and around the world, including Gerhard Schröder, the former Chancellor of Germany, Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, and Joko Widodo, the currant President of Indonesia.
Life and career
A political scientist who received his Bachelor's Degree from Miami University and his Ph.D. from Harvard, Greenberg spent a decade teaching at Yale University before becoming a political consultant. His 1985 study of Reagan Democrats in Macomb County, Michigan became a classic of progressive political strategy, and the basis for his continuing argument that Democrats must actively work to present themselves as populists advocating the expansion of opportunity for the middle class. As the pollster for Clinton in 1992, Greenberg was a major figure in the famed campaign "war room" (and hence the documentary film of the same name).
He is the CEO of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a polling and consulting firm, and co-founder (with James Carville and Bob Shrum) of Democracy Corps, a non-profit organization which produces left-leaning political strategy. He is a regular contributor with Carville to the weekly Carville-Greenberg Memo at The National Memo website.
During his work for the Austrian SPÖ Greenberg was heavily criticized and derided by FPÖ leader Jörg Haider.
Greenberg's current and former corporate clients include British Petroleum, British Airways, Monsanto Company and General Motors.
Controversies
In May 2010 Greenberg was linked to a controversy involving White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. As a House member, Emanuel had lived for five years in a rent-free D.C. apartment jointly owned by Greenberg's wife, Democratic House member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, and Greenberg. During this time, Emanuel was chairman of a committee that awarded large polling contracts to Greenberg's firm.
Following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Greenberg's work for BP became controversial. Greenberg's firm has been called a "prime architect" of BP's effort to rebrand itself as a green petroleum company. As early as 2002, critics had deemed that effort "greenwashing".
Personal life
Greenberg is married to Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, who currently represents Connecticut's 3rd congressional district. Financial disclosures filed in Congress indicate that DeLauro is a multimillionaire.
Books
- Politics and Poverty: Modernization and Response in Five Poor Neighborhoods (1974)
- Race and State in Capitalist Development: South Africa in Comparative Perspective (1980).
- Legitimating the Illegitimate: State, Markets, and Resistance in South Africa (1987)
- Middle Class Dreams: The Politics and Power of the New American Majority (1995)
- The Two Americas: Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break It (2004) ISBN 0-312-31838-3
- Dispatches From The War Room: In The Trenches With Five Extraordinary Leaders (2009) ISBN 0-312-35152-6
- America Ascendant: A Revolutionary Nation's Path to Addressing Its Deepest Problems and Leading the 21st Century (2015)