About
PETER DAOU
Peter Daou is a political consultant who has advised leading campaigns, companies and organizations including Hillary Clinton for President, the United Nations Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative, Intel, Microsoft, AARP, Planned Parenthood, Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids and Nuclear Threat Initiative. In 2004, Peter directed netroots outreach and online rapid response for John Kerry’s presidential campaign. In 2006, he joined Hillary Clinton’s senate re-election campaign as a digital media strategist and in 2007 was named Internet Director for Hillary Clinton for President.
Peter has been cited frequently by news outlets including the Washington Post, AP, ABC News, New York Times and Wall Street Journal. He has been a speaker and panelist at numerous conferences including Harvard Business School's Cyberposium, Forbes MEET, and the Personal Democracy Forum. Peter's site, The Daou Report, which he published until joining Clinton’s team, was a popular blog and opinion aggregator. His widely-read analysis of netroots influence, The Triangle: Limits of Blog Power, has been described by techPresident as "a seminal essay on the interaction between the blossoming blogosphere, the political establishment, and the press."
Before entering politics, Peter was a successful music producer, artist manager, and label owner, releasing albums on Sony Music (Columbia Records) and MCA/Universal. He wrote and co-produced three #1 Billboard Club singles, licensed compositions to dozens of films and television shows, appeared on recordings by artists ranging from Bjork and Diana Ross to Mariah Carey and Miles Davis, and was featured in Keyboard, URB, Vibe, Billboard, the NY Times and Newsweek. In the early nineties, as part of the incipient jazz-electronic music scene, he toured the US and Europe with prominent DJs and artists, including Moby and rapper Guru.
Peter grew up in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war. At 15, he was conscripted into the Lebanese Forces, a sectarian militia, and served until he entered the American University of Beirut. He moved to New York in the early eighties to complete his philosophy degree at NYU. Peter currently lives in New York with his wife and daughter and serves as a digital media adviser to several organizations and campaigns.
THE DAOU REPORT
Launched shortly after the 2004 presidential election, the Daou Report was the public version of an internal memo that Peter Daou distributed to Kerry campaign staff and advisers tracking online commentary across the political spectrum. The site was intended as a digest for strategists, reporters, bloggers, analysts and political observers, highlighting exceptional blog posts and distilling the main themes being discussed and debated online. The Daou Report was hosted by Salon from February 2005 to April 2008, renamed the Blog Report in 2006 and managed by the ubiquitous Steve Benen after Peter joined Hillary Clinton’s campaign. For questions or comments, click here.
