V.O. Wants Back on the Ballot!
The greener pastures of utility lobbying hold only so many charms, apparently: According to elections-board records, former Ward 5 Councilmember Vincent B. Orange Sr. has picked up ballot petitions for the District's male slot on the Democratic National Committee.
Orange, who did not immediately return calls for comment, took a job as vice president for government affairs for Pepco in early 2007 after his failed 2006 mayoral run. Since then, Orange has been seen often around the John A. Wilson Building. A national party committeeman spot would be a perfect perch for Orange to hone his already razor-sharp political skills while still drawing a nice private-sector paycheck.
He'll be running against Arrington Dixon, the former councilmember and Ward 8 businessman who has held down the national committeeman spot since 2000.
Orange's run also means the District's Democratic voters might have no fewer than three Pepco executives to choose from on their primary ballots. Besides Orange, Deborah M. Royster, Pepco's deputy general counsel and president of the Ward 4 Dems, is running for the national committeewoman spot and Linda Jo Smith, a public-affairs representative for the company, is running for an at-large spot on the D.C. Democratic State Committee.
Pepco spokesperson Clay Anderson says the company has no problem with its employees' civic aspirations: "We're fine with people's personal lives," he says.
One wag LL recently consulted called an Orange-Royster-Smith ticket the "Vote for Us or We'll Turn Off Your Power" slate.
Photo by Darrow Montgomery
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1:24 pm
Wait, the DC Democrats have spots on the board reserved by sex?!
That is ree-god-damn-diculous.
2:32 pm
Reid, it's not just in DC. That's the way Democratic Party organizations work generally, including delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August.
3:06 pm
Mike, you're kidding, right? (Honestly, maybe this was meant as sarcasm.) But this is utterly moronic if it wasn't meant as a joke:
"A national party committeeman spot would be a perfect perch for Orange to hone his already razor-sharp political skills while still drawing a nice private-sector paycheck."
"razor-sharp political skills"?! This is a man that decided to give up his Council seat to run for Mayor. Yeah, you might have heard: Adrian Fenty won that election. By a lot. Vince finished fourth, with 3,000 votes out of 106,000 cast.
Yep, those are razor-sharp political skills if I've ever seen them.
3:23 pm
How can VO run without a jingle?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/19/AR2006041901261_pf.html
3:57 pm
Read into LL's assessment of VO how you will. But the guy is a legendary schmoozer. Perhaps "politicking skills" would have been the better verbiage.
4:05 pm
Mike: You can listen to the actual song here: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2006/07/31/dcision-06-2006-campaign-songbook/
4:26 pm
Definitely reject the values of the Washington City Paper.
5:59 pm
Mike DeBonis:
Thanks for the VO jingle recording. Full disclosure: During the campaign, I contacted St. Nicholas Music, Inc., the ASCAP-listed administrator for the "Rudolph" song, in an attempt to save the sanity of DC radio listeners. I do not know if a "Cease and Desist" letter was issued, but broadcasts of the dratted jingle stopped.
11:26 pm
pepco=evil in this town.
they can't ever get anything right. i'm so glad they employ VO, because they're equally worthless.