For Immediate Release: Chapter Twenty-Six, 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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St. Petersburg, Florida 

“Power is drifting downward from the nation-state to cities and metropolitan communities, horizontally from government to networks of public, private, and civic actors, and globally along transnational circuits of capital, trade, and innovation.”¹

It’s 1998, and I am sitting in the back row of a modest auditorium in the Old Executive Office Building, what is now called the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. A gray upside-down-pool-table behemoth located next to the White House, it features enormous ceilings and elaborate offices where even at higher levels, two and even three staffers share space. The old Department of War, the door knobs denote the rank of officers who used to occupy the offices. 

One special benefit staff like me are afforded working for the president is the chance to attend special events. Many of my colleagues have attended State arrivals, watching on with the media as presidents and prime ministers come to the White House. Others have stood on the South Lawn to see press conferences and photo ops. 

I have been asked to come to the event, to sit in the back, fill a seat. It is not the arrival of a celebrity or a prime minister. There are to be no special performances at this event, no crush of press and people at a rope line.