Senior Advisor

Dear Mr. Mullings:

We can’t help noticing that you have titled yourself a “Senior Advisor” on the campaign of Fred Thompson.

Just what does a “Senior Advisor” do? And how is that different from the responsibilities of a “Regular Advisor?”

Signed,
The American Human Relations Association

First of all, in Your Nation’s Capital there are only Senior Advisors. There is no such thing as a regular advisor and certainly not any junior advisors so the adjective senior in Senior Advisor is, at best, superfluous.

Superfluous?

That’s the way we Senior Advisors talk. Else how would anyone know we were smart enough to carry the title?

Anyway, when I was hired as a Senior Advisor I thought, as I’m sure you do, that it meant I was a person with high status within the campaign whose job it was to give advice to the campaign.

I soon found out I had misinterpreted the duties. In fact, given my advanced age, the term was not pronounced “Senior ADVISOR,” but rather “SENIOR Advisor” meaning I was supposed to be giving the campaign advice on how to deal with other seniors.

Enough, already, with the yucks. Do you have a job or not?

Yes, I do. And it’s pretty darned important, too. Why, just last night in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (where Sen. Thompson was speaking to the county GOP Women’s annual Chili Cookoff) it was drizzling and I was given the task of getting my collapsible umbrella out of my suitcase which was in the belly of the bus and have it at the ready in case it started to rain really hard.

Seriously, my job is more-or-less Advisor Without Portfolio.

I have some experience in the area of messaging and dealing with the press, so being out on the road with Sen. Thompson allows me to hang out with the political reporters covering the campaign and find out first hand what’s going on in that important quarter.

I also have some understanding of politics in general so, again, traveling with allows me to chat with the local folks and get sense of where things are, unimpeded by the filter of the Popular Press.

Finally, I have been in and around enough large-scale campaigns to have developed this rule:

Most campaigns spend more time, effort and energy on internal struggles then they do trying to confound and defeat their opponents.

If you can avoid that, you will usually win.

With that in mind, I will try to keep any minor squabbles from turning into serious feuds although with a campaign only three days old, this is not a problem.

So, as Senior Advisor, that’s what I do.

Rich