Mayor Ed Murray has gotten better at hiding his temper thanks to spokesperson Viet Shelton.
Mayor Ed Murray has gotten better at hiding his temper thanks to spokesperson Viet Shelton. Kelly O

Josh Feit has the news: Mayor Ed Murray's main spokesperson, Viet Shelton, is leaving the city in about a month for a senior communications gig with Microsoft.

As opposed to his predecessor Reading, another longtime Murray confidant, who was a calm counterpoint to Murray, Shelton idles in sitcom existential crisis mode alongside the mayor, obsessing over political storylines and decisions. Somehow, though, Shelton managed to corral the rambunctious mayor into more formal protocol, stopping Murray from handing out his personal cell phone to reporters and trying to keep the argumentative mayor off Facebook.

As Feit writes, Shelton's move may not indicate a systematic problem within the mayor's office, but will "certainly present a problem moving forward as the administration now tries to replace a key political voice like Shelton, especially as Murray moves into reelection mode next year."

(All emphasis mine.)

As far as spokespeople for politicians go, Shelton is not terrible. He's calculating and slippery, sure—those things are basically in the job description—but at least he gets back to reporters in a relatively timely manner. (You listening, SPD?) He's also, as Feit points out, "hyperactive" enough to match the mayor's incessant need to be liked.

But his work on getting the mayor to chill out in public has done some damage to the fun of a Stranger reporter's job. Murray's temper toward journalists and staffers has been well documented, including by my predecessor Anna Minard, who got an earful of it a few months before Shelton started. Shelton has worked hard to get Murray to stop shouting at reporters and he's been pretty successful. I, for one, am hoping whoever replaces him is less effective on that front.