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I knew there was more .. thanks, Liz ..! I believe he’s also been labeled Valerie Jarrett’s fixer .. meaning .. y’know .. he knows how to twist arms and bend the outcome care of inconvenient situations.

In other words = union thug.

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Meet Obama’s Karl Rove

Excerpt:

But Gaspard, a “smooth operator,” according to one DNC political organizer, is not shy about wading into a fight. In 2009, he famously leaned on New York Governor David Paterson to abandon plans to run for election this fall, imparting word in no uncertain terms that the White House had lost confidence in his ability to win.

Paterson rebuffed him, only to be forced to drop his campaign amid a hail of negative publicity in February. (There are no hard feelings, a close friend of the governor told The Daily Beast.)

Just before Election Day 2009, Republican Dede Scozzafava, trailing in the polls in a three-way special election campaign in New York’s 23rd District, dropped out—frustrated over the national GOP support that flowed to Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.

Democrat Bill Owens was adrift in the polls. Gaspard phoned Scozzafava—and within 24 hours, she endorsed the Democrat. Gaspard “was terrific,” says Dan Cantor, executive director of New York’s progressive Working Families Party, who has known Gaspard for many years. “And we won.”

Heading into November, Gaspard will oversee where and how the administration throws its weight around. Naturally, the Obama White House is not lacking in political opinions. David Axelrod, the lugubrious keeper of the Obama message, David Plouffe, the baby-faced campaign manager turned voice of Organizing for America, and Rahm Emanuel, who perfected his belligerence as 2006 chairman of the DCCC, all have outsize political footprints.

The president himself told Gaspard during campaign season: “I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

Nevertheless, Gaspard, who holds the job occupied most recently by Karl Rove, is one of the most powerful men in American politics.

His team, along with deputy chief of staff Jim Messina and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, handles most of the incoming pleas from the numerous candidates and constituencies in search of political TLC. “He builds relationships; he puts out fires; he identifies fires when they’re about to start; he’s a sounding board for the president whenever something is happening,” says the DNC organizer, who has worked with Gaspard on events and messaging. “And he’s just never rattled.”

For 10 years as executive vice president of the influential Service Employees International Union’s 1199 chapter, Gaspard taught a master class in influence within New York City.

“There is no political office in New York that did not feel his impact, and many of them owe their careers to him,” says one organizer affiliated with a progressive labor party.

His circle of allies range from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to key SEIU health-care broker Dennis Rivera, to Joe Bruno—the Republican former head of the New York State Senate recently convicted of fraud.

Since his early days working for candidates like Jesse Jackson and David Dinkins, and organizing protests in the wake of the 1999 Amadou Diallo shooting, Gaspard has been deemed a “liberal creep” by conservative Michelle Malkin for his ties to the now-defunct ACORN operation.

He’s also built a reputation as a “lethal,” “bulldoggish” organizer. “His forte was getting feet on the ground and working at the grassroots—for or against you,” says Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York. “You wanted Patrick on your side.”

So, too, did candidate Obama. After months of trying, he recruited Gaspard in August 2008, both as a link to the labor movement and to what had been Hillary Clinton’s home turf.

Obama appreciated Gaspard’s loyalty to SEIU (he recently turned down a plum job there to remain in government), his commitment to organizing, and his comparatively exotic family history—Gaspard was born in then-Zaire to Haitian expatriates.

And like Obama, he builds easy bridges to different demographics. “People can relate to him, old and young,” says Meeks. The 41-year-old organizer “understands civil rights and he understands hip-hop.”

http://madayo.com/2010/06/06/meet-obamas-karl-rove/