Thousands of Clinton aides and campaign staffers are being forced to leave Washington D.C., move back in with their parents and go on welfare, according to counselors working with the recently unemployed staff.
“There’s anger, there’s frustration, there’s anxiety, there’s burnout,” said Russ Finkelstein, a managing director at Clearly Next who has been counseling Clinton campaign staffers.
“People are in shock,” said Anastasia Kessler-Dellaccio, 35, who quit her job at Sister Cities International to run Foreign Policy Professionals for Hillary. Some Clinton campaign workers say they’ve lost their bearings, so rattled by the reality they are facing in 2016 compared to the positions they expected to find themselves in.
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The job market is about to get even more crowded for Washington Democrats, as thousands of Obama appointees join the thousands of Clinton campaign staffers looking for employment.
As Politico reports, there has rarely been less demand for their services, with employers shunning CVs that mention working on the disastrous Clinton campaign.
Kessler-Dellaccio added, “I think people, myself included, are trying to figure out, ‘How do I recalibrate my dreams?’”
Not everyone has the financial flexibility to take time to figure that out, forcing some to contemplate leaving Washington and politics behind right as they feel a renewed sense of urgency.
It’s no longer about finding the “perfect fit,” said Mira Patel, a longtime Clinton aide. “A lot of us are looking for any fit.”
Toxic brand
Clinton campaign staffers are still struggling with how to talk about their work.
“Some of them are thinking, ‘Oh, am I going to be judged for having lost?” said Finkelstein. Others worry about sounding tone deaf when they try to highlight their individual accomplishments within the broader operation – though career advisers say that’s exactly what they should do.
“I have two sets of resumes,” said Kessler-Dellaccio. One highlights all her work fundraising and recruiting volunteers for Clinton. But after repeatedly seeing job postings looking for Republican connections, Kessler-Dellaccio says she “quite literally stripped out all of the Hillary stuff” out of her alternate C.V.
She added, “I have friends who even on LinkedIn have removed any Democratic Party alignment because they’re afraid if employers see too much Hillary stuff they’re not going to get a job.”
