I'm surprised…

…that Postman is surprised...

"As a small businessman, Mark has put his company on hold to work for the final four months of the campaign. He has accepted a full-time staff position as outreach director at $8,000 per month through the election. We are pleased to have Mark on our team."

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I have to admit I am surprised at how much Wilson is being paid.

Look, go out and talk to some small business folks, sole proprietors, and tell them that you’d like them to shutter their shop, hit the road for three months (apparently the term of Wilson's employment), work long days away from home and when it's all over be cut loose to pick up the pieces of their life for $24K, which will probably work out to something well under twenty bucks an hour.

Most of 'em probably wouldn't take the deal if they thought there was a cure for cancer at the end of the rainbow. They just couldn't afford it.

Mark Wilson can, perhaps because he's already trimmed his business sails somewhat for a year and a half as he's combed the state trying to build his own primary campaign, establishing links with members of the "peace and justice" community that he's now going to attempt to cement and expand on behalf of Maria Cantwell. In the world of upper echelon political consulting, that's called a bargain. In the context of a multi-million dollar campaign operation, it's crumbs. If Wilson ends up picking up a share of his travel expenses (and my own experience as a staffer off and on since 1972 says he almost certainly will), he'll likely lose money on the deal.

You think you'd like to be in his shoes? That's mostly because you've never been there.