Longtime political strategist Tom Shepard may be among the most successful campaign consultants the San Diego area has seen, but he is most certainly unmatched in one rather unique category. Who before him could ever lay claim to being the consultant for every one of the members of the County Board of Supervisors…simultaneously? (Jim Sills, if you can actually come up with an answer for that, you are even more of The Man than I previously thought.)
In today’s U-T, columnist Tom Blair notes that Shepard’s chairman-high flush may have come to an end, at least for now…
“(Congressman Brian) Bilbray’s chief of staff, Steve Danon, reportedly has signed on veteran political consultant Tom Shepard to steer Danon’s campaign for Pam Slater-Price’s supervisor seat. That would indicate Shepard has signed off as Slater-Price’s campaign consultant — a position he held in her campaigns for supervisor.”
If indeed Shepard’s 100 percent lock on the campaign controls of the five supes has dropped to a mere four-fifths, it speaks all the more to the level of Donnybrook that will follow for Slater-Price’s seat in 2012.
It could also lead some to further conjecture that Slater-Price won’t run for re-election after all. Some.
Others, including Danon and Slater-Price Chief-of-Staff John Weil may want to weigh in and provide some perspective. They have before.