Clyde Williams

Political Director for the Democratic National Committee (since January 2009)

Why He Matters

Williams and his wife, Mona Sutphen, make up one of the most powerful couples in Washington. He is political director for the Democratic National Committee. She is deputy chief of staff in the White House. They met in the Situation Room, when both worked for the Clinton White House.

Williams, a D.C. native, got his start as a staffer on the D.C. City Council. After working for the Clinton administration, Williams followed the former president to New York, working as a domestic policy adviser for the Clinton Foundation. During that time, Williams created the Harlem Small Business Initiative, which helped small businesses with accounting, computing and other similar tasks. "I got to work on some very compelling issues," he said. "I got to be as creative as I wanted to be."

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: President of Certus Advisors (March 2005 to January 2009); Vice president for state and local government affairs at the Center for American Progress (January 2004 to May 2005); Domestic policy adviser to the Clinton Foundation (2001 to 2005); Deputy chief of staff to Secretary of Agriculture Daniel Glickman; Deputy director of White House scheduling and advance; Assistant press secretary at the Department of Agriculture (1997); Staffer on the D.C. City Council
Birthday: Feb. 8, 1962
Hometown: Washington D.C.

Alma Mater: Howard University, B.A. (political science)
Spouse: Mona Sutphen
Web site

Path to Power

Williams grew up in Washington D.C. His father, Williams found out much later, worked at the DNC but died when his son was just 3-years-old. Williams' mother was a public school teacher in southeast Washington.

Williams was supposed to go to Ballou High School, immortalized in Ron Suskind's book "A Hope in the Unseen" as a crime-ridden inner-city school. But his mother paid the electric bill for a friend who lived in-boundary for Woodrow Wilson High School, a public school located in a more affluent neighborhood. "And that was the only thing she could afford to do, so that was like her private school for me," Williams said.

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D.C. City Council Aide

"It was one of those things that really transformed my life, to be quite honest," Williams said. "Because the people I met at Wilson and the things I got exposed to at Wilson compared to where I grew up, it was like night and day." One of the people he met at Wilson was Harry Thomas Jr. (D), now a D.C. City Council member, whose father was a council member at the time. "That's really how I got exposed to politics, through my relationship with Harry Thomas Jr.," Williams said.

Williams went to Howard University, where he studied political science and worked full-time as a claims adjuster for an insurance company. He did that for two years before joining the campaign of John Wilson (D), who was running for city council.

After Wilson's successful campaign, Williams went to work for then-Council member Harry Thomas Sr., until Wilson ran for chairman of the council. Williams worked on that campaign and then in Wilson's office until Wilson died in 2003. At that point, Williams joined Council member Bill Lightfoot's Judiciary Committee office for a few years.

Clinton Administration

In 1996, a friend convinced Williams to work for President Bill Clinton's second campaign. He did scheduling and advance, press and a host of other jobs. After Clinton won re-election, that work paid off with a job in the Agriculture Department. Williams worked as an Agriculture assistant press secretary for about a year before being sent temporarily to the White House. He spent a couple years as the deputy director of scheduling and advance and then served as deputy chief of staff to Agriculture Secretary Daniel Glickman until the end of the Clinton administration.

Clinton Foundation

When Bill Clinton left office, Williams followed the former president to New York as domestic policy adviser to the Clinton Foundation. But he ended up doing a bit of everything. He advised the former president on international issues as well as public school programs funded by the foundation. From January 2004 to May 2005, he also served as the vice president for state and local government affairs at John Podesta's Center for American Progress.

2008 Presidential Race

In March 2005, Williams started his own company, Certus Advisors, a business development firm. During the 2008 presidential election, Williams stayed loyal to the Clintons, supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary, while his wife, Mona Sutphen, became a Barack Obama supporter. "Politics for me is about loyalty," said Williams, who worked as an informal adviser to Clinton. "The Clintons opened up my world." But after the Democratic primaries ended, Williams threw his support behind Obama.

Following the election, Sutphen was offered a job in the White House - "and not just any old job," Williams said, "deputy chief of staff in the White House. So I said, 'I guess we're moving.'"

Williams planned to continue working with Certus Advisors from D.C., but instead was offered a job with the Democratic National Committee as its political director.

The Issues

Williams, a former vice president of the D.C. Young Democrats, doesn't hide his partisan perspective. "I believe in the Democratic Party. I believe in what it represents," he says. "When I think about this party and the potential it has to grow and expand, it's endless."

Williams' job at the DNC is to simultaneously expand the party and promote the president's agenda. He spends much of his time working with state governments and nationwide elected officials. "It's one thing for us to talk about it [an issue] or for people in D.C. to talk about it," Williams said. "It's another thing when people across the country talk about it. When they understand the importance of it and they're part of saying, 'you know, we're helping to get this piece of legislation pushed through because we think it's important.'"

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Like most Democratic partisans, Williams said top priorities such as the stimulus package and the budget overwhelmed the first six months of 2009. And he points to health-care reform as the top priority for the rest of 2009. "You have health commissioners in each state who can tell you why this health initiative is so important," Williams said. "So you do a lot of talking to constituent groups and electeds to make sure they're getting the information they need, that we're reaching out to them and doing what's necessary to get the president's message across."

The other major priority for the DNC is to win the two gubernatorial races in 2009 in New Jersey and Virginia. "They're a big deal," Williams said. "With Democrats controlling the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, we have a lot of stuff we need to do and a lot of things that have to be coordinated correctly to hold those [governor] seats."

Clinton Foundation and Administration

Williams was one of Clinton's top advisers at the Clinton Foundation. While there, he dedicated his time to focus on programs that were important to him, from education initiatives to employment issues. He started a program called the Harlem Small Business Initiative, which devoted resources to small businesses that needed help with accounting, business plans and other business consulting. Between when it started in 2002 and when Williams left in 2004, the program had provided more than 44,000 hours of consulting for local businesses, and it was expanded to Brooklyn and the Bronx in 2004. "You created jobs for people," Williams said. "You took small businesses who were somewhat dysfunctional and made them functioning. You made a lot of people computer literate who had never used a computer before. And you saw the immediacy of it. It was great. I have a fondness in my heart for the community of Harlem and its people."

Along with his work in Harlem, Williams said the issues most important to him were the ones he worked on at the Agriculture Department. As deputy chief of staff to ex-Secretary Glickman, he was one of the top people in a department with 100,000 employees and an $18 billion budget. He focused mainly on foreign agriculture issues, food safety and security issues and education. "People don't realize a lot of land-grand institutions, African American and otherwise, are agriculture funded," Williams said.

The Network

Williams met his wife, Mona Sutphen, in the Situation Room while helping to plan the Wye River Summit in 1998. The White House deputy chief of staff is an integral part of Barack Obama's network and is a close adviser to the president.

Still, Williams supported then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in the 2008 presidential election because of his loyalty to the Clintons. "One thing I always say is you dance with the one that brung you," Williams said. "Nobody would ever know me on a national level - no one would ever know me in politics if I hadn't worked for Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. So there's nothing more important than loyalty." In addition to being close to the Clintons and former Agriculture Secretary Daniel Glickman, Williams considers top Hillary Clinton aide Maggie Williams as a mentor.

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Campaign Contributions

Williams has donated sparingly throughout his career. He donated $1,000 to Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) in 2003 and $1,000 to Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008.

Additional Resources

Wilson, Scott, "Another World: Policy Chief Enters a New Phase," The Washington Post, April 14, 2009
Center for Responsive Politics
Richardson, Lynda, "A Clinton loyalist puts faith in a fortified Harlem," New York Times, Jan 16, 2002
"Clyde E. Williams, Jr.," Conde Nast Portfolio.com profile
Gill, John Freeman, "Cold Shoulders," New York Times, July 27, 2008
Feuer, Alan, "Clinton office expanding aid to the Bronx and Brooklyn," New York Times, Feb. 12, 2004
Whorunsgov interview with Clyde Williams on July 11, 2009

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