Arriving in the nation’s capital from California in my 20s to fill a vacancy in Knight-Ridder Newspapers’ Washington bureau, I came with only minimal guidance from my editors and a short list of people to call on. First was my father, a respected Washington Post White House correspondent. I also paid a visit to the Capitol Hill office of Rep. Phillip Burton, a legendary San Francisco Democrat. Burton, who was Nancy Pelosi’s mentor, was a close friend of my parents. But he died suddenly a year later, at 56. Although I regretted not spending more time with Phil, I ultimately found my own confidant in Democratic Party politics – and much more.
Before leaving the Bay Area – my home paper was the San Jose Mercury News – I’d been told by an editor at the Merc who’d recently come from Washington that if I was writing about Southern politics, I should call a media consultant named Raymond Strother.
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