Brandon Johnson turns to U.S. Sen. John Fetterman's staff for communications help

Joe Calvello learned the art of being “radically open and honest” while guiding U.S. Sen. John Fetterman through a difficult campaign dominated by health issues.

Now, he’s coming home to help guide Mayor Brandon Johnson through the shark-infested waters of Chicago politics.

Calvello, 31, is Johnson’s choice to fill the newly created job of chief strategy officer.

He joins a team Johnson has been slow to build at a time when the most progressive mayor in Chicago history has had difficulty shifting from campaigning to governing — and changing his communication style to match.

Johnson’s everyday challenges might seem like a piece of cake compared to crises Calvello has already navigated.

During a campaign against Donald Trump-backed Dr. Oz — one of the most expensive in U.S. Senate history — Fetterman’s doctors disclosed he had a heart condition . Days before the Democratic primary,the Pennsylvania Democrat suffered a stroke. He had a pacemaker and defibrillator implanted on primary day.

That grueling campaign taught Calvello a lot.

“It was being open about it and kind of then tying John’s struggle to the struggles of the people across Pennsylvania — that he and his family weren’t the first family who had a stroke, who were suffering from health issues,” Calvello told the Sun-Times Thursday.

“We really used his health scare as an opportunity to talk about what was at stake here in this election, what’s at stake with your family. ... People were refreshed that he was open, that he put himself out there,” he said. “Even though he still had some issues speaking and was still recovering, [he] put himself out there in front of the electorate and said, ‘Here I am.’ It was just being radically open and honest about things and bringing that back to the average person who also has struggles in their life.”

After the election, Fetterman disclosed he had clinical depression. He checked himself into the neuropsychiatry unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for six weeks, then was on the cover of Time magazine under the headline, “Out of the Darkness.”

“Hours after he admitted himself to Walter Reed, we got that news out there. We gave updates as best we could,” Calvello said. “We gave him time to recover. We just took a bet that people will have empathy.

“There’s a lot of bull---t [in politics]. ... We kind of went around that and were really honest and open about it. And when he was able to make his recovery, he made sure to pay it forward to get out there and talk about depression. Destigmatize depression.”

It wasn’t the first time Calvello had helped guide a high-profile politician through a health crisis in midcampaign. He employed a similar strategy of openness while working for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign when the Vermont Democrat suffered a heart attack.

Calvello grew up in west suburban Woodridge, one of three children in an Italian family. A cousin owns Tufano’s Restaurant off Taylor Street.

He graduated from Naperville North High School and got a lacrosse scholarship to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he learned the values of “busting your ass,” teamwork and trust — values that drew him to politics.

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“When you’re facing adversity — whether it’s on the lacrosse field or in a $200 million Senate campaign or at City Hall — you turn to the people next to you, your team, and you know they have your back and that you’re gonna give it your all,” he said.

Johnson political adviser Bill Neidhardt worked with Calvello on the Sanders campaign.

In lacrosse, “his specialty was winning faceoffs — where you have to really get down low and try to beat the other person’s reaction time and get to the ball first. ...He still has that tenacity and that competitiveness. …He knows how to navigate high-stress, high-intensity environments and situations. He’s perfect for City Hall.”

After returning to Chicago later this month, Calvello said he hopes to help Johnson sharpen his communications message and “make that transition from candidate to governing.”

“If comms and media is one of the areas I’m asked to do, I’ll be happy to help there and support the team that’s there and make sure that the message is getting delivered clearly and concisely,” Calvello said.

Johnson has work to do in delivering his message “clearly and concisely.” He tends to give long-winded responses that parrot campaign slogans and avoid answering questions directly.

With press secretary Ronnie Reese becoming communications director, senior mayoral adviser Jason Lee was asked what problem Calvello was hired to fix.

“Our goal is to do everything better,” he replied.

Although Johnson is a “proven and strong communicator,” Lee said the “demands of the media and the public have only risen year after year in terms of the level of engagement, the level of transparency, the level of information, the level of content that’s required to keep the apparatus satisfied.”

He added: “There are always times where we say, ‘We could have communicated better. ... We could have been more out front on this issue.’”