Napolitan, Joseph

Joseph Napolitan, a pioneer in the field of political consulting, is largely credited with coining the term political consultant in the modern campaign era. [Page 481]He has been advising candidates, parties, and national governments since 1956. He is the founder of the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) and cofounder of the International Association of Political Consultants (IAPC), the two primary organizations for political consultants worldwide. He has served as president of each and was the first member ever inducted into the AAPC Hall of Fame. He is also treasurer and board member for the International Foundation for Election Systems. He is the author of the book The Election Game and How to Win It and numerous articles about politics including “100 Things I Have Learned in Thirty Years as a Political Consultant.”

Napolitan majored in English literature and started out as a sports and then political reporter for a newspaper in Springfield, Massachusetts. His political career began when he agreed to manage a campaign for a dark horse candidate in the local mayoral election. Napolitan went on to work on the campaigns of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson but is perhaps most well known for orchestrating Hubert Humphrey's dramatic rise in the polls near the end of the 1968 presidential election. Napolitan also managed the 1966 campaign of Pennsylvania Governor Milton Schapp, one of the first television-intensive campaigns of our time. Since then he has worked on more than 100 domestic political campaigns, from mayoral and gubernatorial races to the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

In addition to his work on domestic campaigns, Napolitan estimates he has worked on at least 20 campaigns on five continents. He has been a consultant to at least nine heads of state, including French President Válery Giscard d'Estaing, several Venezuelan presidents, and Costa Rica's Oscar Arias, who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Napolitan, in his seventies and still active in politics, is the president and CEO of Joseph Napolitan Associates, Inc., a political consulting firm headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts, and chairman of Napolitan Associates/PAA, Inc., in New York, which focuses on campaigns outside the United States. He was selected by PR Week magazine as one of the “100 most influential PR people of the 20th century” as well as by American University's Campaign Management Institute as one of eight outstanding political consultants who contributed most to establishing and maintaining high standards in the business.