May 30, 2012 10:15 PM UTC

Job Market Unkind To Dick Wadhams?

• 6 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

We were tipped off to this story in City & State, a New York political rag:

Politicker’s David Freedlander just reported that GOP Senate Candidate Wendy Long’s campaign manager Dick Wadhams has stepped down from his post, and we’ve learned that Wadhams will effectively be replaced by New York-based operative Rob Ryan…

Asked whether the campaign had let go of its campaign manager, Catalfamo said, “I don’t think we’ve ever announced a campaign manager. Dick has always been an advisor to the campaign. He remains a close confidant.”

We had heard that Wadhams took an advisory role because his salary was too high, [Pols emphasis] but could not confirm it. A source close to the campaign said the fact that Wadhams spent so much time in Colorado was seen as a problem for managing the Long campaign’s day-to-day operations.

UPDATE: Long campaign spokesman David Catalfamo sent us this emailed statement confirming the hiring of Rob Ryan to run daily operations.

“Rob Ryan has taken over day-to-day operations for the Wendy Long for US Senate campaign.  Dick Wadhams has been indispensible in orchestrating the first phase of the campaign helping to secure the Conservative nod and the plurality of the Republican support for Wendy in just a few short weeks after entering the Senate primary. Dick remains a valuable resource to the campaign. As we head into the stretch run, Rob’s deep experience and expertise in New York politics will be essential to reaching prime conservative-Republican voters,” Catalfamo wrote.

The last time we checked in with the career fortunes of controversial ex-Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams, he had started working for Michigan GOP Senate primary candidate Clark Durant, running against the favored Pete Hoekstra for the chance to take on incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow. As it turns out, Wadhams lost that job in December–reports that he would move to Michigan evidently were premature. Sometime after he get on board with Wendy Long in New York’s GOP Senate primary, a potential challenger for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

After the triumph of his victory in South Dakota in the election of Sen. John Thune in 2004, and his legendary success managing the Senate campaigns of the otherwise clueless Sen. Wayne Allard, Dick Wadhams is in the midst of a long dry spell. Wadhams presided over the “Macaca” collapse of Sen. George Allen’s re-election campaign in 2006 and former Rep. Bob Schaffer’s Colorado shellacking in 2008, and heading up the Colorado Republican Party during its 2010 Dan Maes/Tom Tancredo nadir. Wadhams’ departure from that six-figure salary post under a cloud soon after marked his return to the hands-on campaign work he’d enjoyed before.

Which seems to have gone kind of roughly too. Is it his clients? Or is he the anachronism?