A New Kind of Politics: Jeremy Bird at TEDxUChicago 2014

Post-Production: Hamid Bendaas | Fire Escape Films ()

Jeremy Bird is a founding partner at 270 Strategies and a longtime grassroots organizer with broad experience across domestic and international politics, labor, and policy.

He helped launch 270 Strategies after serving most recently as the National Field Director for the 2012 re-election campaign of President Barack Obama, where he had primary responsibility for building a nationwide army of staff and volunteer organizers.

Dubbed the campaign's "Field General" by Rolling Stone magazine, Jeremy was listed among "The Obama Campaign's Real Heroes" and has been cited as "a former Harvard divinity student who took to political organizing as though it were his higher calling."

He is credited with helping establish a ground game and turnout machine that in 2012 "reproduced -- through brute force, dedication and will -- a turnout in the swing states that in some cases bested the campaign's remarkable performance of four years ago."

Jeremy is a graduate of Wabash College and Harvard Divinity School. He grew up in a trailer park in High Ridge, Missouri and is passionate about grassroots politics, traveling the world, and talking about sports -- especially his hometown St. Louis Cardinals and his newfound love of soccer.

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In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)