Progressive Political Strategy
Mike Lux
President
Mike Lux is a co-founder of Democracy Partners, an innovative, full-service national consulting firm launched in 2011; and has been the CEO of his own consulting firm, Mike Lux Media, since 1999. Clients have included many of the most important institutions in the progressive community, including the League of Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood, Moveon.org, the NAACP Voter Fund, Center for Community Change, DailyKos, and Democracy Alliance. He has also been featured on various news outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, and the Thom Hartmann show; as well as being a frequent front-page contributor to The Huffington Post and for DailyKos and Crooks & Liars.
Mike served as a senior staffer or advisor on seven different presidential campaigns. He was the national constituency director for the 1992 Clinton campaign and the special assistant to the president for public liaison in the Clinton White House from 1993-1995. During his time in the Clinton Administration, Mike worked closely with a wide range of constituency groups, as well as on health care and budget issues. He served in the 1992 campaign war room, the 1993 budget war room, and the 1994 health care war room, being one of only two people to serve in all three. In the late 1990s, Mike was the senior vice-president for political action at People For the American Way and the PFAW Foundation. A member of the Obama-Biden transition team in 2008-2009, Mike was its liaison to the progressive community.
Mike currently serves on the boards of several important organizations, including the Arca Foundation and Netroots Nation, and is also a co-founder of the Center for Progressive Leadership, the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, Progressive Majority, and Women’s Voices/Women Vote. He was until recently the chair of the board of Progressive Congress Action Fund. Mike founded American Family Voices in 2000 and remains the chair of the board. He is also the author of the widely praised book The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be. His latest book, How to Democrat in the Age of Trump, was published in June of 2018.
Mike Lux is a proud native of Lincoln, Nebraska, where most of his family still lives. He has had the joy of being married to Barbara Laur since 1983.
Lauren Windsor
Partner
Lauren Windsor is a partner in Democracy Partners and Mike Lux Media specializing in progressive political communications strategy. She was the deputy communications director for the Tom Steyer 2020 presidential campaign.
Lauren is also the executive director of American Family Voices, where she oversees content for various issue campaigns focusing on Wall Street reform, climate change, and Big Money in politics. As part of that work, she produces the reporting web-show The Undercurrent, which features field interviews with leading members of Congress and other political figures. Lauren created the investigative website Project Veritas Exposed, which serves as a vetting resource for the progressive movement in the prevention of rightwing infiltration. PVE has been featured in The Daily Beast and The Intercept.
Lauren has been a contributor to Huffington Post, DailyKos, The Nation, and LA Progressive, and runs her own blog, Lady Libertine. Her investigative reporting on the Koch brothers’ summer donor retreat in 2014, which broke several hours of audio from key Senate candidates and Koch political operatives, was one of the biggest political stories of the year, leading to hundreds of press hits in online and print publications, and local, national, and cable news television. The Koch audio was featured prominently in Jane Mayer's best-selling book on the Koch brothers, Dark Money.
Lauren has appeared on Current Television, RT, Thom Hartmann TV and radio, The Young Turks, and The Background Briefing with Ian Masters. Her work has been featured on The Rachel Maddow Show, All In with Chris Hayes, Politics Nation with Al Sharpton, The Ed Show, The Lead with Jake Tapper, and many other publications.
In addition to her reporting, Lauren also produces pop culture political videos, with a particular affection for music video parodies. The first music video parody she produced for AFV, "Ted Cruz: Wrecking Ball," was featured in the "Sideshow" segment on Hardball with Chris Matthews.
Lauren pursued a career in fashion for many years before becoming politically activated during the Occupy protests in Los Angeles. She is unmarried and without children, but has an abiding love for shoes, vintage clothing, and the Golden State.
Joel Silberman
Partner
Best known for his two-year stint as a political humorist for the LA Times, Joel Silberman lives at the intersection of entertainment and politics. His pugilistic viral videos have received millions of views and been covered in media outlets around the world. He has also served as a consultant on numerous scripted TV projects, most recently for Amazon Prime on the Nazi drama series “Hunters,” starring Al Pacino.
As a screenwriter and veteran of political campaigns, including President Obama's in 2008, Joel began introducing people from his two worlds as a hobby and it evolved into consulting for progressive candidates and causes. His services include communications strategy, speech coaching, organization building, and video production.
Joel still – in spite of everything – believes in Change We Can Believe In.