Politics Inside Politics Gossip: Shelton Out. Shelton In.
25-year-old Viet Shelton was the state Democratic Party’s spokesman—until he got demoted to assistant when the paranoid Cantwell campaign (which relies on the state party to do its sound-biting) decided he didn’t have enough experience.
Well, in a loss to the Dem party, Shelton—a rising star in local politics until his weird demotion—left his assistant position this week to take a hefty job as a senior staffer for Team Nickels. Shelton is going to be Nickels’s political outreach director.
Congrats to Shelton. Although, he’s inherited quite a mess: Nickels’s costly, environmentally uncool tunnel plan; Nickels’s clunky clampdown on music venues; Nickels’s plan to kill strip clubs; and Nickels’s forever tax for roads maintenance (and potentially roads expansion).
Of course, Shelton got a nice break on Nickels’s tax plan. Now that Tim Eyman is campaigning against it, the $1.6 billion plan is sure to pass.
Welcome to Team Nickels, Mr. Shelton. They’ve been out of whack for months and could certainly use your help.
*Shelton is half filling the spot of Marco Lowe, Nickels’s former outreach director, who left last month after 7 years as a Nickels’s staffer (dating back to Nickels’s county council days). Lowe’s job has been divvied up and Shelton is taking on the politicking piece. As Zander points out in the comments, Shelton was Nickels campaign manager in 2005. Lowe was Nickels’s campaign manager in ‘01.
Shelton and Eyman sitting in a tree.
Wishing it was legal to get married.
Sigh.
Some days it feels like we live in Alice & Wonderland, and the rabbit hole gets deeper and deeper and deeper.