In Washington, just as the weather gets cool in early autumn, political staffers remember that their bosses are elected, and hustle off to "the district" to "work on the campaign." It's easiest for people working directly for the Congress: they'd done just about nothing for a few months. Once summer finally ends, almost everyone feels a need to get back to work. The staffers had be seen by the boss as helping out when it mattered most: the final desperate rush to win re-election. One of my friends was so eager to "get back to the district", that left this car illegally parked: it accrued so many tickets, towing, and storage costs that he owed the city more than it was worth.
For people working in the vast constellation of ideologically aligned groups around the Congress, glomming onto a campaign or something campaign-ish is a little trickier. The person you wanted notice from as often a sitting member of Congress as a top campaign hand, incumbent-challenging candidate, or party strategist. You had a harder needle to thread: the district needed to be viewed as in jeopardy but winnable, the candidate needed to both a true believer in your cause but also electable, and while you didn't want to actually do hard work, you definitely wanted to have enough to brag about. Returning the city, the winners of this game had a few stories, a few new connections, and new notice from the big boss.
I thought the best spot was the one where you're already doing just enough campaign-related work already to justify staying in the city. DC is beautiful in the fall. I know because I stayed in the city with the lazy cowards: happy to help our bosses exercise their power but too timid to help them earn it.
In thinking back on it. A few of the staffers were really helpful. I had a pal who'd take a leave of absence from the congressional office and be his boss's full-time campaign manager for each election. Sometimes the personal aides helped their bosses survive the arduous work of campaigning. But mostly, people glommed onto just enough work to claim some credit and angle for a new, better job, or at least a promotion. Having been in a few different places and industries since my years in DC, I've found the incessant posturing for career advancement isn't unique to politics, but it's far more brazen in our Capitol. In DC, the personal posturing is analogous to the organizational posturing: no organization wanted to be first to endorse a candidate or take some stand, but every one wanted their contribution to be noted as decisive to whatever the outcome, no matter how inevitable.
That mad scramble for minimal contributions and maximal credit claiming defines the #thistown ethos. And it always comes to my mind when election cycles heat up in the fall. So I thought this week it'd be entertaining to check in on what #thistown is up to. The news and gossip are almost entirely about the presidential campaign. If you glance at the front page of the NYT or WSJ or WaPo or Politico, then you'd be forgiven for thinking that we're about to elect a person with the powers of a medieval king: they're all breathlessly reporting what some campaign-adjacent apparatchik says as if it'll actually happen. For those wildly concerned, I'd like to sell you your pick of a bridge in Brooklyn or a big, beautiful wall that Mexico paid for in early 2017.
If you sift past those headlines, though, you can discover some stories of #thistown still going strong. There's a pretty nice irony on Max Boot: one of the leaders of the "Trump is a foreign operative" brigade has had his wife indicted as a foreign operative. The actual foreign influence game isn't TikTok ads: it's funding policy and journalistic operations attached to institutions. Speaking of institutions, my old cronies at The Heritage Foundation were the dog that caught the car this summer: they've always had briefing book and Rolodex for a potential new administration, but this year their mad scramble for credit and power got all the wrong kinds of attention. The fallout is ongoing (and oddly entertaining). But the thing to read is the top link below: somehow the blowup of Project 2025 happened over the same few days as they gave all-access to a Politico reporter.
Reading
Project 2025 Was Supposed to Be Trump's Administration in Waiting, But Was a Mirage
The inside story of how Project 2025 fell apart.