I wanted to share with you a project I have been working on and published over at Substack. It’s called “For Immediate Release: Essays and Lessons From 30 Years in Politics and Government.” It is a series of essays and stories of politics, government, and a little bit of life in between. These stories span 30 years, from Little Rock, Arkansas to Washington, D.C. to St. Petersburg, Florida. Most of it covers my professional experiences in political campaigns — from a presidential campaign to local campaigns, from federal government to life at City Hall — but there are several personal anecdotes as well.

Links to the chapters are at the bottom of this post.

I sent it out to paid subscribers on Substack over the course of a few weeks. I was incredibly grateful to paid subscribers who took a chance on it. I hope you’ll consider a paid subscription and check it out, too.

I also wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who appears in these stories, essays, and lessons.

In particular, I want to thank my mother, who died last year. I deeply regret that she was not able to read this (and I am sorry I won’t get to hear her comments, which would have been constructive).

I would like to thank my father, too, who not only obviously plays an outsized role in this story, but who serves as the perfect example of what a father is supposed to be.

I want to thank George Kosnik, from my days at ONDCP. His unmistakable, too-often NSFW voice still often rings in my head when times get tough, and I hope it always does.

I would like to thank Kevin King, who has been nothing but kind to me since he brought me into the Kriseman circle so long ago, now. Most of the St. Pete parts of this story would not have happened without him — and that’s been good news not just for me, but for the city we both love.

I very much want to thank Dr. Kanika Tomalin for serving as an example of effortless grace and bullseye-perfect wisdom that never seems to fail. For all the good that came out of working at City Hall, her friendship will always rank near the top.

I also want to thank everyone in the Mayor’s Office during the Kriseman Administration: Wayne Atherholt, Leah McRae, Nikki Gaskin-Capehart, Jessica Eilerman, David Flintom, Sharon Wright, John Rodriguez, Sally Everett, Jim Nixon, Nina Mahmoudi, Veronika Slep, and Acquandist Uy. To everyone in the Mayor’s Office thank you for being a part of my City family for eight years. To the City Administrators, Directors, and Managers — and to anyone I forgot to name — thank you as well.

And of course, I want to thank Rick Kriseman. It’s simple: he transformed St. Petersburg for the better in most every way you could measure. And he did it in the face of, very often, tough political odds. It was nothing short of a privilege and an honor to be a part of his team.

I don’t know if you can or should do dedications on a book — such as it is — that has been released chapter by chapter on Substack, but I’ll try, anyway.

This is for my children, Emeline, Finnegan, and Elle. May each of you carry the lessons of both life and work with more grace, humility, patience, and gratitude than I ever did. I love you.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Table of Contents Part 1

Table of Contents Part 2

Table of Contents Part 3