HARVEY Englander has run campaigns for a host of current and former local officials including L.A. City councilmembers Joel Wachs and Hal Bernson, City Controller Laura Chick and L.A. County Supervisor Don Knabe. He's also run campaigns for several current and former state legislators, including two now active in the Valley secession fight: Richard Katz and Keith Richman.
Englander got his start in politics in 1968 volunteering for the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy. After a stint with campaign consultant Joe Cerrell, Englander ran the campaign for Proposition 13, the Howard Jarvisled property tax cut initiative. Eventually, he sold his consulting firm to the Democratic powerhouse Kamber Group, but disillusioned with his role in that firm, he bought his company back and sold it again in 1999 to MWW Group. He has gradually eased out of the campaign business and focused more on corporate clients.
Q: You have represented both Democrats and Republicans. What do you look for in a candidate before you decide to run their campaign?
A: Party labels have meant less and less to me over the years. I really work for people who have qualities I admire. I want to elect people who aren't just naysayers but actually offer solutions to problems, regardless of party affiliation. Everybody can talk about the problems, but few people can actually offer solutions.
Q: Weren't there some allegations of sexual harassment that came out against Conroy during that race?
A: Yes there were. And we helped fuel them. That's what a good campaign does.
Q: But isn't that dirty campaigning?
A: All we were doing was taking stuff that was already in the papers up in Sacramento and making sure that the voters knew about it. Mickey Conroy certainly wasn't going to tell the voters about it. This was all readily available information. But in the world of politics, you don't assume that just because it's appeared in print somewhere that everybody knows about it. You keep reminding people of the good stuff about your candidate and the negative stuff readily available about your opponent.
Q: Hasn't the tone of campaigns changed?
A: Yes it has. Before Watergate, when a candidate ran an ad, it usually focused on the qualities that he or occasionally she would bring to the office. Then it became "What I would do if elected, and, oh, by the way, my opponent is bad." Now, it's simply, "My opponent is bad."
Harvey A. Englander
Title: Senior Vice President, General Manager
Organization: MWW Group, a unit of Chicago-based Golin/Harris International
Born: New York, 1950
Most Admired People: Hubert Humphrey
Personal: Divorced, two sons in college.
Veteran political consultant Harvey Englander is now in business as Englander and Associates, Fine also says. Englander left the MWW Group earlier this year.
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His cousin, Mitchell Englander is a political consultant as well as Chief of Staff for Los Angeles City Councilman, Greig Smith.
2001 - Los Angeles Business Journal: New Lobbying Shop - Issue Strategies - Brief Article
The nephew of one of the L.A. area's most noted campaign strategists has opened up his own local lobbying shop. Mitchell Englander left his uncle Harvey Englander's firm, the MWW Group, and on June 25th set up Issue Strategies in offices near the Staples Center.
Harvey Englander is well-known in political circles, having ran several campaigns for local and state officeholders through the years, including Laura Chick and Hal Bernson for L.A. City Council and L.A. County Supervisor Don Knabe.
He apparently is no stranger to political dirty tricks either.
Metropolitan News: Commission Says Valley Candidate’s Mailer Misleading
An April 1 mailer by Los Angeles City Council candidate Greig Smith included misleading attacks on his opponent, a campaign watchdog group said.
Smith’s campaign manager, Mitchell Englander, disputed the findings of the commission.
Also cousin Mitch is into gay "pranks" as well:
2004 - LA Weekly: In the Lap of Lobbyists
Out wiggles councilman and ex-cop Dennis Zine, blond wig on his head, wispy red dress over his gray suit, pink feather boa around his neck, sidling up to Padilla, wagging his butt and — wait, is he really? — yes, he is. Zine is giving Padilla a very convincing lap dance.
Lots of jokes about breaking into the Mayor’s Office, since it was for this very event that Padilla and Smith’s chief of staff and dinner co-host, Mitch Englander, pressed a security guard a few Saturdays back to unlock Jim Hahn’s office so they could shoot some video. The mayor said, when he found out, that he felt violated. The guard was suspended. But everyone at the dinner cranes to watch the video, which, alas, shows only the word censored when it gets to the part where Padilla enters Hahn’s office.
LA Observed: Let's break into Jimmy's office
Seems that Alex Padilla, the president of the City Council, and the chief of staff to councilman Greig Smith were spotted last weekend shooting video inside the closed -- and locked -- suite of Mayor Jim Hahn. They didn't have permission to be there, says Hahn's office, but had talked City Hall guards into unlocking doors for them.
Padilla and Mitch Englander explain the after-hours entry as innocent, "part of their effort to shoot a satiric video for an upcoming American Diabetes Association fund-raiser in which Padilla will be a featured guest.
The mayor's sister, councilwoman Janice Hahn, calls it a "childish prank" that showed lack of respect on Padilla's part. Englander retorts that "some people have a sense of humor, some people don't...it ruffled some feathers, but that's what spoofs usually do."
This may explain how buddie Edmund was able to afford a high priced lawyer on a campaign staffers salery. It also shows that there may be more to this than a mere teenage prank. LA's political elite might be playing both Parties against each other for fun and profit.