Maxine Isaacs

Maxine Isaacs is an American university lecturer and political analyst who served as a member of the press office of Walter Mondale during his tenure in the United States Senate and as deputy press secretary when he was vice president during the Jimmy Carter administration. She was later press secretary for Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign. Following her career in politics, she became a lecturer at Harvard University and, occasionally, at George Washington University and New York University, teaching courses on U.S. politics and presidential campaigns.

Early life and career Maxine Isaacs is one of three children of Amy Isaacs and Bernard Isaacs of Shaker Heights, Ohio. Her father was a naval officer who was selected to help train the Golden Thirteen, the first African-American candidates to become U.S. Navy officers. After the war, he became a representative for a plumbing and heating supplies manufacturer. He was also involved in politics and the civil rights movement. Maxine said her political views came from her father who was a Hubert Humphrey supporter. Her father was Jewish and experienced antisemitism while growing up in a mostly Polish-American town in Wisconsin where many people harbored pro-Nazi sentiments. She graduated from Shaker Heights High School in 1965. She then graduated in 1969 with an AB in American studies from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. After graduating from Skidmore, she lived in Japan for about a year.

Political career In 1971, Isaacs was hired to be legislative assistant, press secretary, and speechwriter for Representative Louis Stokes, a Democrat from Ohio.

In the early 1980s, she ran her own public relations consulting firm, Maximum Inc., in Washington, D.C. Isaacs became deputy campaign manager and press secretary for Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign.

Academic career and later life In 1988, she graduated with a master's degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University. She has taught courses at Harvard, and occasionally at George Washington University and New York University, on the relationship between the media and politics, with a special focus on U.S. presidential campaigns and elections. Isaacs also served as a board member of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. The couple separated in 2010 and subsequently divorced. The Signature Theatre's main stage, the Max, is named for Isaacs. She also serves as a trustee of the American Associates of the Royal National Theatre. She formerly served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Folger Shakespeare Library.