Maxine Isaacs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Maxine Isaacs | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1947 (age 78–79) Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. |
| Education | |
| Employer | Harvard University |
Board member of | |
Maxine Isaacs is an American university lecturer and political analyst who served as a member of the press office of Walter Mondale during his tenure in the United States Senate and as deputy press secretary when he was vice president during the Jimmy Carter administration. She was later press secretary for Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign. Following her career in politics, she became a lecturer at Harvard University and, occasionally, at George Washington University and New York University, teaching courses on U.S. politics and presidential campaigns.
Maxine Isaacs is one of three children of Amy Isaacs (née Jacobson)[1] and Bernard Isaacs of Shaker Heights, Ohio. Her father was a naval officer who was selected to help train the Golden Thirteen, the first African-American candidates to become U.S. Navy officers. After the war, he became a representative for a plumbing and heating supplies manufacturer. He was also involved in politics and the civil rights movement.[2] Maxine said her political views came from her father who was a Hubert Humphrey supporter.[3] Her father was Jewish and experienced antisemitism while growing up in a mostly Polish-American town in Wisconsin where many people harbored pro-Nazi sentiments.[4] She graduated from Shaker Heights High School in 1965.[5] She then graduated in 1969 with an AB in American studies from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.[6][7][8] After graduating from Skidmore, she lived in Japan for about a year.[6][9]
Political career
In 1971, Isaacs was hired to be legislative assistant, press secretary, and speechwriter for Representative Louis Stokes, a Democrat from Ohio.[6][7][9] In 1973, she transferred to Walter Mondale's U.S. Senate office to become the Minnesota senator's deputy press secretary.[6][7] When Mondale's 1974 exploratory presidential campaign came to an end, she became a freelance writer for NPR and The Africa Report. She rejoined Mondale's vice presidential campaign staff in 1976 when Jimmy Carter asked Mondale to serve as his running mate.[7][8]
Mondale was elected as vice president in the 1976 presidential election, and Isaacs became his deputy press secretary in the White House.[6][7] Isaacs often traveled with the Vice President as he went on diplomatic missions around the world.[6] In the 1980 reelection campaign for Mondale and Carter, she served as traveling press secretary in a campaign which accumulated more than 200,000 miles (320,000 kilometers) of travel between September 1979 and November 1980. The Carter ticket lost the 1980 presidential election.[10]
In the early 1980s, she ran her own public relations consulting firm, Maximum Inc., in Washington, D.C.[7] In February 1981, she announced the formation of an exploratory committee for Mondale's possible candidacy in the 1984 presidential election.[11] Isaacs became deputy campaign manager and press secretary for Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign.[9] After his loss to Ronald Reagan, Mondale ended his political career and returned to practicing law.[12][13]