When I ran a political and communications consulting firm I was told to blog because it would help define my brand. I was advised to pick topics that demonstrated how I approach political and communications problems, and include links to people and organizations I wanted to work for.
Last fall I closed my firm and took a position in medium sized, quasi federal agency, and stopped blogging. Neither am I in the hunting for clients business, nor do I have a lot of time to wax political.
And now I’m back, partially at the suggestion of some friends, and partially because I like to wax (and rant).
This blog will be periodic (ideally weekly) short postings of things that I found interesting and relevant to those who work in the political communications business, broadly defined (or who are subject to it via political ads, news conferences, and such). The bias will be in favor of data-driven or theoretically informed research, writing that makes connections between unexpected things, or that otherwise pokes at assumptions made by people in my field, and those who comment on my field.
None of my waxing or ranting should be taken to be directly about my day-job. This blog is for stuff that catches the eye of a one-time wanna’-be academic who has spent 20-plus years working in and around Congress, has spent nearly as long teaching at a handful of universities around the country, and who has done a bunch of other stuff from art to political satire. The ego being fed here is my own.