Eddie Vale is a political communications consultant who works on a variety of left-of-center causes. While currently a partner at the New Paradigm Strategy communications and consulting firm, Vale was previously the vice-president at the American Bridge 21^st Century Foundation and a member of its board. ¹ Vale has also worked communications for numerous state, federal, and presidential elections, the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka’s campaign for president of the AFL-CIO, and the Workers Voice super PAC. ² He is a frequent political commentator.

New Paradigm Strategy

Vale is a partner at the consulting and communications firm New Paradigm Strategy (NPS). NPS works with a variety of clients ranging from the military and political groups and campaigns to private businesses. ³
American Bridge

In 2013 Vale was hired as the vice-president of the American Bridge 21^st Century Foundation which is the lobbying arm of the American Bridge 21^st Century Democratic Party-aligned super PAC. ⁴

While under Vale’s direction, American Bridge harshly attacked Charles and David Koch, philanthropists and prominent donors to conservative and libertarian nonprofits and candidates. These attacks included running ads attacking the brothers with claims that their father built an oil refinery for Nazi Germany. The ads were geotargeted to run at the New York City apartment building where David Koch lived, and various cultural venues that had benefited from David Koch’s charitable donations. ⁵

The claims were scurrilous and lacked context. A statement from Charles and David’s company, Koch Industries, detailed that the contract between Winkler-Koch Engineering and Foreign Oil Co. of Boston was signed in 1933 and the refinery in question was completed in 1935, which was before either Charles or David were born. Koch Industries noted that Fred Koch, Charles and David’s father, ceased to do business in Germany after this one project and was a supporter of the U.S. effort in World War II. ⁶

Freedom from Facebook

Vale serves as an advisor to the Freedom from Facebook coalition campaign that calls for the Federal Trade Commission to break apart Facebook and mandate that all its then separate parts, such as WhatsApp and Instagram, be made interoperable. ⁷

Freedom from Facebook was embroiled in controversy in July of 2018 after Vale created a graphic for the campaign in which Facebook executives Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg where portrayed as heads on an octopus with its tentacles grappling the globe, recalling historically anti-Semitic images. (Both Zuckerberg and Sandberg are Jewish.) Freedom from Facebook’s coalition includes groups such as the Jewish Voice for Peace, which the left-of-center Anti-Defamation League has labeled “a radical anti-Israel activist group that advocates for a complete economic, cultural and academic boycott of the state of Israel” and MPower Change, a group cofounded by anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour. ⁸

Vale responded to the controversy by arguing that the cartoon was meant to invoke a famous cartoon attacking Standard Oil for being a monopoly and that the anti-Semitic history of the image “has no bearing here because I’m the Jewish person who designed, and knows, what it is.” ⁹

Save Journalism Project

In 2019 Vale helped to launch a nonprofit focused on attacking Google and Facebook for their supposed role in undermining journalism. Vale pitched the idea to Laura Basset and John Stanton, both recently laid off news reporters, who then started the Save Journalism Project. Basset has called for breaking up large tech companies. ¹⁰

Political Stances and Opinions

Vale has stated that it is not controversial to label President Trump a racist, claiming that “for anyone that isn’t quite sure yet, he provides a new example nearly every week.” ¹¹

He also believes that the female candidates for the 2020 Democrat presidential primary have mostly not succeeded in getting to the top of the field because “they’re still dealing with a lot of latent sexism and double standards both from how voters perceive them and how they’re covered.” ¹²

Vale has criticized 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidates for failing to stay in union hotels while they are on the campaign trail, saying that they “should want to do it ― not just for the politics, but because we’re Democrats, we’re progressive, and we want to support union members.” ¹³

Political Contributions

Vale contributed $1,000 to the first U.S. Senate election campaign of Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in 2012. ¹⁴

1. American Bridge 21^st Century Foundation, IRS (Form 990), 2016, Part VII.
2. “Eddie Vale.” NPStrategyGroup.com. Accessed September 9, 2019. https://npstrategygroup.com/staff/eddie-vale/.
3. “Our Work.” NPStrategyGroup.com. Accessed September 9, 2019. https://npstrategygroup.com/our-work/.
4. Livingston, Abby. “Shop Talk: American Bridge Signs Mackler, Vale for Super PAC.” Roll Call, April 1, 2019. Accessed September 6, 2019. https://www.rollcall.com/news/shop-talk-american-bridge-signs-mackler-vale-for-super-pac.
5. Swan, Jonathon. “Nazi Ads to Target David Koch’s Apartment Building.” The Hill, January 12, 2016. Accessed September 6, 2019. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/265651-nazi-ads-to-target-david-kochs-apartment-building.
6. Robertson, Dave. “Koch Responds to Book Claims.” Koch Newsroom, January 12, 2016. Accessed September 6, 2019. https://news.kochind.com/news/2015/false-and-inaccurate-claims-about-koch.
7. “Freedom From Facebook.” Accessed September 8, 2019. https://freedomfromfb.com/.
8. Scher, Brent. “Anti-Facebook Group Takes Anti-Semitic Signs to Congress.” The Washington Free Beacon, July 17, 2018. Accessed September 9^th, 2019.
9. “Hitler’s Jew-Hating ‘Octopus’ Imagery Appears On Anti-Facebook Group’s Sign.” Forward, July 18, 2018. Accessed September 9^th, 2019. https://forward.com/fast-forward/405921/hitlers-jew-hating-octopus-imagery-appears-on-anti-facebook-groups-sign/.
10. Gray, Rosie. “These Reporters Lost Their Jobs. Now They’re Fighting Back Against Big Tech.” BuzzFeed News, June 4, 2019. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosiegray/media-tech-facebook-layoffs-google.
11. Parnes, Aimee. “Dems Increase Calls of Racism against Trump.” The Hill, January 24, 2019. Accessed September 8, 2019. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/426700-dem-increase-calls-of-racism-against-trump.
12. Parnes, Aimee. “White Men Leading in Dem Polls Raises Issue of Double Standard.” The Hill, April 11, 2019. Accessed September 8, 2019. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/438341-white-men-leading-in-dem-polls-raises-issue-of-double-standard.
13. “Not All Democratic Candidates Are Careful To Stay In Union Hotels.” HuffPost, August 9, 2019. Accessed September 8, 2019. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democratic-candidates-union-hotels_n_5d4d7a3ae4b01e44e4794858.
14. Center for Responsive Politics. “Edward Vale.” Opensecrets.org. August 22, 2019.

    Accessed September 5, 2019. https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=Edward+Vale