Staffers for Vince Gray have been working for their boss’s campaign in their off-hours for a while, but now the mayor will have a high-ranking city official working for him full-time. Steve Glaude, the District’s director of Community of Affairs, tells LL that he’s taken a leave of absence from his city job to help Gray get re-elected.

Glaude, who will work as the campaign’s political director, says his work will include building the field operations and get-out-the-vote efforts.

“Given the mayor waiting to announce, we have to have what you would define as a surge campaign,” says Glaude, who ran constituent services for Gray when Gray was on the D.C. Council.

Gray campaign manager Chuck Thies talked up his new co-worker’s connections in District neighborhoods.

“That he would involve himself in the campaign, immerse himself in the campaign, is both humbling and invigorating,” Thies says.

Glaude’s leave of absence will end after the April 1 primary, according to Thies.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery