* From Steve Yaffe at the Illinois Republican Party…

Hey Rich!

This has been an open secret over here for some time, but I wanted you to be the first member of the press to know that Tuesday will be my last day at the ILGOP.

Don’t worry though, I’m not disappearing! I am taking a position at the Republican Governors Association to handle rapid response for Illinois and a number of other states.

The opportunity to work on the national level and in new states to get Republican governors elected while still being involved in Gov. Rauner’s campaign is something I couldn’t pass up.

Some background:

I started by working on Rauner’s campaign January of 2014 as a freshman college intern making phone calls, a bit before the primary. As the general election ramped up, the campaign needed interns to staff the war room. I was lucky enough to be offered a chance to do that, and things snowballed from there, with Mike Schrimpf eventually offering me a Press Assistant job for the rest of the campaign.

I’ll never forget when I called my parents telling them I was taking months off from college at the University of Chicago to work on a political campaign. It took some convincing.

I worked as a Press Assistant up through inauguration before returning to school.

Soon after getting back to college I decided I wanted to stay involved, so I started interning for Mike and Lance at the Governor’s office as a communications intern, taking whatever classes let me spend as much time as possible over there.

In March of 2016 I joined the state party full time as Rapid Response Director. What many people don’t know is that during the last cycle I had not technically graduated from college yet. In fact, I took another 6 months off for that race, and from January-June of this year I worked both full time at the ILGOP and college until (finally) getting my degree.

The best and most insightful thing I’ve learned in my brief time in politics is that it can be incredibly meritocratic and nothing is more satisfying than working on a great team.

Let me know if you have other questions!

- Steven

You may not have agreed with what he wrote, but Steve is one hard working dude. Replacing him will not be easy. I wish him nothing but the best. He’s been providing us with entertaining content for a good long while.