Squadron, Daniel

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Squadron, Daniel

PERSONAL:

Education: Graduated from Yale University.

ADDRESSES:

Office— Knickerbocker SKD, 594 Broadway, Ste. 610, New York, NY 10012. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER:

Knickerbocker SKD, New York, NY, partner, 2007—. Field director, mayoral campaign of Representative Anthony Weiner, 2005; former aide to New York Senator Chuck Schumer; also worked for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney.

WRITINGS:

(With Chuck Schumer)Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time, Rodale Books (Emmaus, PA), 2007, published as Positively American: How the Democrats Can Win in 2008, Rodale Books (Emmaus, PA), 2008.

Contributor,New York Times.

SIDELIGHTS:

In Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time, former senatorial aide Daniel Squadron and Democratic New York Senator Chuck Schumer talk about the successes of the 2006 elections—in which Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in twelve years. The two also consider the challenges facing Democrats in the final years of the Bush administration. Schumer recognizes that the 2006 Democratic electoral victories were due less to Democratic popularity than to anti-Iraq War sentiment and disgust with perceived Republican malfeasance. Positively American, stated Michiko Kakutani in the International Herald Tribune, "amplifies these views while laying out a series of concrete proposals for winning back the middle class."

Although reviews of the book acknowledge Positively American as Schumer's work, the senator credits his coauthor as an important influence on its composition. "I did this book all by dictation, then Daniel Squadron transcribed it, then we rewrote, researched and reedited over and over," Schumer told New York Post contributor Cindy Adams. "Wasn't easy. Like Squadron would come over seven o'clock Sunday mornings, so we'd upset the whole family with our loud discussions." After completing the book, Squadron joined the New York City political consulting firm Knickerbocker SKD as a partner.

Schumer explains his approach to politics as it has evolved over thirty years of public service by imagining a middle-class New York City family: Joe and Eileen Bailey. The senator states that he is guided in his decisions by picturing how he can make life better for these imaginary constituents. Then, said Jill Ortner in her Library Journal review of the volume, Schumer "spells out his ‘50% Solution,’ a guide to winning back the middle class for the Democratic Party." The points that will make life better for the Baileys, Vanessa Bush declared in her Booklist review, include raising math and reading scores by increasing federal spending on schools; and creating programs designed to "reduce illegal immigration and encourage legal immigration by creating a biometric national employment card, reduce dependency on foreign oil, and lower cancer mortality." The senator's work, Kakutani concluded, "provide[s] Schumer's party with at least the beginnings of a credible blueprint for change and renewal."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 1, 2007, Vanessa Bush, review of Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time, p. 46.

Library Journal, April 15, 2007, Jill Ortner, "The New American Story," p. 103.

National Review, August 8, 2005, "The Inquisitor: Charles Schumer, Leader of the Anti-Bush Crusade," p. 22.

National Right to Life News, December 2006, "Back to Basics," p. 3.

New Republic, April 2, 2007, Martin Peretz, "Half Full," p. 64.

New York, November 8, 2004, Jennifer Senior, "See Chuck Run. and Run. and Run. and Run: But Where Is He Going," p. 39; April 10, 2006, Ryan Lizza, "The Bush-Cheney Era Ends Here: If Chuck Schumer Can Make His Dream of a Democratic-Controlled Senate Come True," p. 40; November 20, 2006, Chris Smith, "The Chutzpah Mandate: How Chuck Schumer and Eliot Spitzer, Both Grating, Obsessive Perfectionists Who Don't Much Like Each Other, Finally Gave Dems a Victory," p. 20; February 12, 2007, Elspeth Reeve, "Happy Family: Hillary Clinton Throws Chuck Schumer a Book Party. Thirty Minutes Later, All the Guests Were Still Hungry for Attention," p. 14.