This is an oddity: I know four people running for non-local office this year–and three of them are from the publishing world.

Jeeni Criscenzo, self-publisher of a lovely novel about Mayan civilization, running for Congress in California

Sander Hicks, whom I interviewed several Book Expo Americas ago–and who courageously published a critical biography of Geroge W. Bush after St. Martin’s pulled it off the market under apparent pressure from the Bush family–running in New York on the Green Party for Senate against Hillary Clinton

Tony Trupiano, media trainer who moderates the teleseminar series from publicity firm Annie Jennings PR, and who is himself an author, running for Congress in Michigan

(The fourth is my cousin-in-law, Aaron Klein, running for a seat in the Maryland Legislature. http://www.kleinformaryland.com )

Isn’t that weird? Even weirder–I heard about all four of these campaigns from other people, and not directly from the candidates.

It will be interesting to see what happens when media figures become political figures. Let’s hope we have better results over here than the Italians got with Berlusconi. Of course, we’ve had media politicians before–but most of them have been move stars, like Ronald Reagan and Clint Eastwood. Small-press publishers and their consultants are a rather different animal.