Treatment of women was among the criticisms leveled at Michael Bloomberg at Wednesday’s presidential debate in Las Vegas, Nevada. The former New York mayor defended himself by citing the roles of women at organizations he has run.
But a campaign finance report filed the next day showed that his campaign has relied almost exclusively on consultants led by men.
“In my foundation, the person that runs it is a woman,” Bloomberg said in that debate. “Seventy percent of the people there are women. In my company, lots and lots of women have big responsibilities. They get paid exactly the same as men. And in my City Hall, the top person, my deputy mayor, was a woman, and 40 percent of our commissioners were women.”
A review of Bloomberg’s early salaried campaign staff — 176 individuals included in the final payroll issued in December — suggests that the same is true there. More than 60 percent were women, and on average, they were paid 99 percent what the men earned.
That is generally in line with the gender equity in early months of other Democratic presidential campaigns this cycle.
However, much of the Bloomberg campaign’s spending — setting aside the enormous advertising costs — has gone to several dozen consultants and firms not on salary.
In January, 26 firms each received $50,000 or more from the Bloomberg campaign for consulting, polling, canvassing, advance work, direct mail, or other services. This does not include companies paid for rent, insurance, legal, or travel costs.
At least 25 of those 26 companies are led by men, though many high-level staffers may be women. One, Standard Practice LLP of New York, could not be immediately identified. It was paid $140,000 for general strategic consulting.
Bloomberg campaign spokeswoman Julie Wood said in a statement they are "lucky to have a diverse campaign staff with women at the very top, and many talented consultants who have diverse teams as well."
Aside from Standard Practice, here are the 25 outside entities paid $50,000 or more in January for campaign consulting and services:
General strategic consulting
—Marathon Strategies, founded by Phil Singer: $336,339
—Gotham Acme, founded by campaign senior advisor Howard Wolfson: $200,000
—Stand And Deliver, founded by Peter James Meyer: $105,354
—270 Strategies, founded by campaign senior advisor Mitch Stewart: $100,000
—Hawkin Holding Company, founded by Ryan Hawkin: $56,166
Media and communications consulting
—MRB4USA, founded by Bill Knapp: $1,512,315
—Technology, Humans And Taste, co-founder and CEO David Kalvert: $144,700
—Siegel Strategies, founded by Jimmy Siegel: $681,484
—Stu Loeser & Co., founded by Stu Loeser: $271,171
—MLV Strategies, founded by campaign senior advisor Marc LaVorgna: $87,500
—Radical Media, founded by Jon Kamen: $74,192
Digital consulting
—Hawkfish LLC, founded by Bloomberg and run by campaign digital director Gary Briggs: $13,653,000
—Zignal Labs, founded by Josh Ginsberg, Adam Beaugh, and Jim Hornthal: $55,000
Polling
—Schoen Survey Research, founded by Doug Schoen: $3,993,500
—Global Strategy Group, founded by Jefrey Pollock and Jeffrey Plaut: $50,000
Canvassing and signature-gathering
—Grindstone Field Solutions, founded by Zachary Yeates: $387,771
—Zero Week Solutions, founded by Colin Bannon, Patrick Donahoe, and Andrew Jiang: $300,000
—Field Corps LLC, CEO Frankie Heredia: $255,000
—The Parkside Group, founded by Harry Giannoulis and Evan Stavisky: $188,000
—Your Choice Petitions, owned by Brent Johnson and Douglas Campbell: $149,574
—New Ground Strategies, owned by Ben Tevelin: $78,000
Others
—Markham Group, founded by Paul Neaville and Greg Hale, advance and event production services: $2,543541
—Geller & Co., founded by Stu Geller, financial and operations consulting: $2,522,440
—Mission Control, founded by Ed Peavy, direct mail: $1,202,817
—LevelUP, founded by Curtis Grejada, human resources consulting: $316,000
—SFC Security & Intelligence, run by CEO Sal Carcaterra, security systems and services: $304,431
In addition, the campaign’s ad buying company, Assembly, was founded by Martin Cass and is now led by Michael Bassik.