Andrew M. Yang (born January 13, 1975) is an American entrepreneur, politician, philanthropist and Democratic candidate for New York City mayor. Orig...
Andrew M. Yang (born January 13, 1975) is an American entrepreneur, politician, philanthropist and Democratic candidate for New York City mayor. Originally a lawyer, Yang began working in startups and early stage growth companies as a founder or executive from 2000 to 2009. In 2011, he founded Venture for America (VFA), a nonprofit organization focused on creating jobs in cities struggling to recover from the Great Recession. He ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, and is running in the 2021 New York City mayoral election.
The son of immigrants from Taiwan, Yang was born and raised in New York. He attended Brown University and then Columbia Law School. Dissatisfied with his work as an attorney, Yang began working for startups during the dot-com bubble before spending a decade as an executive at test preparation company Manhattan Prep. In 2011, Yang founded VFA, which recruits top college graduates into a two-year fellowship program at startups in developing cities across the United States. The Obama administration selected him in 2011 as a "Champion of Change" and in 2015 as a "Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship." Yang left VFA in 2017 to focus on his presidential campaign. In 2018, he authored The War on Normal People, which outlines several of his campaign's central ideas.
On November 6, 2017, Yang filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to run for President of the United States in the 2020 election. Yang's campaign largely focused on responding to the rapid development of automation, which is increasingly leading to workforce challenges and economic instability in the United States. His signature policy was the "Freedom Dividend," a universal basic income (UBI) of $1,000 a month to every American adult as a response to job displacement by automation, one of the primary factors that he claims led to Donald Trump's election in 2016. Considered a dark horse candidate throughout much of the primary, Yang received significant popularity online, with The New York Times calling him "The Internet's Favorite Candidate". News outlets described Yang as the most surprising candidate of the 2020 election cycle, going from a relative unknown to a major competitor in the race. Yang qualified for and participated in seven of the first eight Democratic debates, and has been credited with elevating discussions on UBI, automation, and autism to the national level, as well as for engaging Asian Americans in presidential politics.Yang's campaign was noted for its happy-go-lucky and "tech-friendly" nature. His supporters, informally known as the "Yang Gang", included several high-profile celebrity endorsements and were noted for their ideological and political diversity. Yang suspended his campaign on February 11, 2020, shortly after the New Hampshire primary, pledging that he and his movement are "just getting started." Following his campaign's end, Yang joined CNN as a political commentator, announced the creation of the political nonprofit organization Humanity Forward, and is running for the Democratic nomination in the 2021 New York City mayoral election.
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Howard Dean
Howard Brush Dean III (born November 17, 1948) is an American physician, author, and retired politician who served as Governor of Vermont from 1991 to...
Howard Brush Dean III (born November 17, 1948) is an American physician, author, and retired politician who served as Governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003 and Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2005 to 2009. Dean was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2004 presidential election. His implementation of the fifty-state strategy as head of the DNC is credited with the Democratic victories in the 2006 and 2008 elections. Afterward, he became a political commentator and consultant to McKenna Long & Aldridge, a law and lobbying firm.
Before entering politics, Dean earned his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1978. Dean served as a member of the Vermont House of Representatives from 1983 to 1986 and as Lieutenant Governor of Vermont from 1987 to 1991. Both were part-time positions that enabled him to continue practicing medicine. In 1991, Dean became governor of Vermont when Richard A. Snelling died in office. Dean was subsequently elected to five two-year terms, serving from 1991 to 2003, making him the second longest-serving governor in Vermont history, after Thomas Chittenden (1778–1789 and 1790–1797). Dean served as chairman of the National Governors Association from 1994 to 1995; during his term, Vermont paid off much of its public debt and had a balanced budget 11 times, lowering income taxes twice. Dean also oversaw the expansion of the "Dr. Dynasaur" program, which ensures universal health care for children and pregnant women in the state. He is a noted staunch supporter of universal health care.Dean denounced the 2003 invasion of Iraq and called on Democrats to oppose the Bush administration. In the 2004 election, Dean was the top fundraiser and front runner, prior to the Iowa caucus, for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. Although he lost the nomination to Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Dean pioneered Internet-based fundraising and grassroots organizing, which is centered on mass appeal to small donors which is more cost efficient than the more expensive contacting of fewer potential larger donors, and promotes active participatory democracy among the general public. In 2004, Dean founded Democracy for America, a progressive political action committee. He was later elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee in February 2005. As chairman of the party, Dean created and employed the 50 State Strategy that attempted to make Democrats competitive in normally conservative states often dismissed in the past as "solid red". The success of the strategy became apparent after the 2006 midterm elections, where Democrats took back the House and picked up seats in the Senate from normally Republican states such as Missouri and Montana. In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama used the 50 state strategy as the backbone of his candidacy.
Dean was named chairman emeritus of the DNC upon his retirement. Since retiring from the DNC chairman position, Dean has held neither elected office nor an official position in the Democratic Party and, as of 2015, was working for global law firm Dentons as part of the firm's public policy and regulation practice. In 2013, Dean expressed interest in running for the presidency in 2016, but instead supported former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's run for president. Dean endorsed Clinton over her competitor Senator Bernie Sanders in spite of the fact that Sanders represented the state of Vermont, where Dean had been governor.
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