It’s ‘break glass here’ time.
I arrived in Arizona in March 2019, a year and a half before the November 2020 election, where I joined Mark Kelly’s race for US Senate as the Research Director. Not an intern, a department head with a staff on what would be a $100mil race- that’s just what we alone spent. Our friends obviously spent more.
My job when I got on the ground was to begin the very thorough self vulnerability investigation into the candidate so we could map out strengths and weaknesses and prepare pushback for attacks. That was done alongside the oppo work to leverage these things against our opponent, Martha McSally. We, me and the two comms professionals I shared an office with, did things like list headlines we wanted to land by August 2019 so we could put them in ads in September 2020. We wrote a comprehensive communications plan.
When it came time to poll, my writing was a large basis for the poll and I had to line edit each one for accuracy. These polls informed our comms plan and ad plan. For each ad we made, ~$80million worth of ads, I had to edit the scripts and review the creative. Each one. So when someone with no discernible resume told me I don’t do comms after I took the job at the State Party, I did not get mad, I laughed at how little they know about campaigning at a real level.
But now that it’s September 2025 and our Democracy is under attack, I’m very mad at the arrogance in our leaders around their lack of experience that is driving us into 2026 with no plan, no staff, and no money. Nothing built as we face an unprecedented upheaval in American life.
No one expects MO state legislators to know how to be political geniuses. Term limits mean the savviness of both staff and elected decreases each year you don’t have a top of the ticket Democrat or big expensive apparatus that provides critical electoral experience. Our Dems were nurses or linemen five minutes ago, not political strategists. But I do expect them to hire professionals instead of letting us build nothing heading into a critical election year.
I watched our leaders travel the state this year telling people they have a plan. They don’t. In fact, they have fired all staff. The State Party employs 2 full time people, the State Senate has two staffers, but the House fired all three staff in March and never rehired, destroying what little infrastructure had been built by leaders past. When I ask about this, I’m told a few things-
Staff overhead doesn’t return investment.
This is categorically false and I bet a consultant told you that. Staff generates money or you’re managing them incorrectly.
We lost, the activists have this now.
The activists aren’t built for this, if they were we wouldn’t have repealed prop A because we would have also elected more Dems. Also, Google how other places feel about offloading this work to outside groups and consultants. It’s not pretty.
We are running a consultant model instead.
This simply doesn’t exist. A consultant told you it does. Duh.
Since the staff firing in March, I’ve advocated for more hires. I’ve offered my own resume, said I would raise my own salary, offered to bring my consulting clients, house candidates, into the House and build out a real program, offered to find resumes for consideration in a national search using my national contacts. All to no response.
I’ve sent potential plans with budgets, models you can run, targeting memos with data analysis. I went as far as to create a fundraising prospectus for the House for them to use with donors. All for free as a former party staffer. I never got a response. Not a ‘received’. Not a ‘fuck you’. Not a ‘thank you’.
Despite this, we are still nowhere. Nothing built. No staff. No money. No plan while we are consistently attacked and being stripped to the studs and sold for parts.
So what can we do? Call our leaders and demand a plan. Ask them when they will begin hiring like every other state has hired Democratic staff. Ask for specifics. Ask for something written down. Do not accept the answer we are handing our work to unaccountable groups with no transparency. Demand a plan or a change in leadership.
