In which Primo and I seriously discuss the possibility of his quitting his job, which pays twice as much as mine does, so I freak out, so he can run for local office and in which we discover there is someone else who is interested in running for that office, so Primo becomes despondent

Where was I? It’s been a while since I’ve posted – the new job has me pretty busy. They actually expect me to work while I am there, which really cuts into my blogging time.

So. Now that I have started the new job, which pays marginally more than the previous job and comes with a sane CEO – or at least a CEO I will never have to see, as there are several thousand employees, Primo is talking seriously about quitting his job so he can focus full time on the campaign.

I tell him he is nuts – that he is not going to win the race no matter what and it’s better to lose and still have a job than to lose and not have a job.

A job, I might add, that pays our bills, as my pay still has not recovered from a six-year absence from the workforce and counts as hobby money. Primo makes twice as much money as I do and has far better benefits.

But then he countered with the argument that although he is not going to win the Congressional race, he could position himself for a local race that will be happening in the spring.

The guy who holds the county seat for our district now just won the primary for county mayor. He is likely to win the election in November, which will mean that the county district seat will be empty.

This guy – let’s call him Russell Crowe – wait – have I used that name already? I cannot keep track of the people in this story. I wish I could use real names but that would be beyond stupid.

(Update: Yes. I have already used the name Russell Crowe, probably because I think Russell Crowe is a hottie and he is top of mind. This is a different Russell Crowe! This is RC #2. Sorry if it's confusing - well, not if it's confusing - it is confusing. Sorry. But I am not good at assigning good pseudonyms.)

Incidentally, any of you who might be job searching: my new boss told me he googled me and read everything I had written online under my own name. So if you are thinking about writing political pieces for your local paper, you might want to be very careful. Actually, he stopped reading the political stuff when he realized it was political because he did not want to let my views influence his hiring decision, but not everyone is that rational.

So Russell – we will leave his name there – used to hold the state house seat that Primo ran for two years ago. He was ticked off at Primo because Primo supported another candidate for the county seat. Primo had given his support to Steven Spielberg before Russell ever announced he was running for the seat, but Russell didn’t care. Russell decided to run for the county seat when he realized that redistricting meant that he could never win the state seat again, which makes a wise person ask, “Well if Russell, who was the incumbent and had held that state seat for years didn’t think he could win again, what made Primo think that he, a newcomer, could win?”

That is an excellent question.

So after Primo didn’t support Russell and supported Russell’s opponent instead, even though he didn’t even know that Steven was Russell’s opponent, and then after Primo ran for Russell’s seat, Russell was cranky and decided that Primo was his enemy.

Primo approached Russell and Russell forgave Primo, even though there was nothing for Russell to forgive. Then Russell decided to run for county mayor and Primo thought, “Aha! I can run for Russell’s seat!”

So that has been Primo’s plan: he would focus his Congressional campaign in the sections of the district that overlap with the county district so he would be well positioned after the November election to run for Russell’s seat. He would quit his job to work full time on all this stuff.

The idea gives me palpitations and cold sweat and nightmares, but in all fairness, Primo does deserve a chance to do something different with his career. I asked that if after a year, he didn’t have some kind of political job, that he return to engineering and he agreed.

I thought we were done.

And then Primo found out that this young guy – Leo DiCaprio (this is not a compliment – I do not like Leo), who works part time for the county, lives with his mother, and doesn’t even live in the district, also wants to run for Russell’s seat.

This gave Primo cold sweat and nightmares.

Leo called Primo and asked if they could meet.

Primo agreed. One hoped that upon meeting Primo, Leo would realize that he was outclassed, but Leo told Primo that he was 95% sure that he would run and that he was meeting Russell in a few days.

Primo became despondent.

I said that maybe he could wallow for a day and then figure out a solution.

“You are not going to let this happen without a fight, are you?” I asked. "You have to talk to Russell before Leo does. He can't just endorse him."

“I really shouldn’t create problems within the party,” he answered.

“Oh bull,” I said. “This is not about the party. This is about you. Here’s how we would fight him: he’s a carpetbagger who has never held a real job and has no valid experience to qualify him for the job.”

“That’s mean!” Primo protested.

“No, it’s not! OK – then we do it more subtly. You are committed to this district – you have owned a house here for over six years. You have 25 years of private-sector work experience and you understand the realities of paying bills and working hard.”

“Maybe,” he admitted.

“We need a plan,” I said. “We need to win this.”