Awhile back David Yassky, my city councilman and a candidate for the NY-11 Congressional race, had a staff member quit over racial issues. That full story never came out as far as I am aware, but it was the loss of his main black staff member. This didn't get much coverage, given how much coverage the race issue has gotten, but was a minor blip early in the campaign.

Well, there seems to be anothe staff shake up on the Yassky team. I hear from two separate reliable sources that Yassky has fired one of his top staff members, political director Rachel Goodman. (I previously reported her as Yassky's campaign manager because she has always been his front-person from what I have seen and most people I know referred to her as such. But I have been corrected: she is not his campaign manager...though she sure seemed to have been filling that role). The rumor, which is essentially two second hand reports, does not give a reason other than a vague rererence to Yassky "freaking out" over "something going wrong."

I have it on fairly good authority that Rachel has not been too fond of my blogging and may well have been one of the anonymous bloggers that has attacked me quite vigorously before. However, whatever the truth of that, it is very hard for me to see how anything has gone majorly wrong with Yassky's campaign. Although I favor one of his rivals, Chris Owens, based on issues, I don't see how anyone can fault the fundraising and petitioning of the Yassky campaign, presumably thanks to Ms. Goodman's efforts. So, what happened?

I have no animosity towards Yassky or his campaign people, though I do hope they lose to Chris and do take some glee in being a minor thorn in their side. But if this rumor is true, we all want to know what went wrong in paradise and I wish Rachel best of luck in her next endeavors. I assume more information will come in the near future.