For Immediate Release: Chapter Seven, Part 1

Essays and Lessons From 30 Years in Politics and Government

Hi, and welcome to the Sun Shine Republic. I’m really glad you’re here.

This is “For Immediate Release,” my essays and stories of politics, government, and a little bit of life in between. They span 30 years, from Little Rock, Arkansas to Washington, D.C. to St. Petersburg, Florida. I’ll be sending it out to paid subscribers here on Substack over the coming days and weeks. I hope you’ll consider a paid subscription and check it out. If you are a paid subscriber, thank you very much. I couldn’t do this without you.

As always, thanks for reading.

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2006 - 2009
St. Petersburg, Florida

I am married again, and happier than I have been in a long time.

We left the dispiriting cold — both the political climate and the harsh winters — of Washington, D.C. and arrived in the Sunshine City in spring of 2006. I am sorry to leave my job at the Parkinson’s Action Network, but it’s time to move on, and I’m ready to come back to St. Petersburg. Sure, the bad taste of the political losses of 2002 lingers, but I am ready for something new.

We settle into St. Pete quickly, a small condo on the south side. I commute to a communications job at a nonprofit in Tampa. Duncan manages the State House campaign of the New College professor who introduced us, a policy genius whose affable manner betrays the cunning of a shrewd politician — Keith Fitzgerald is a natural.