Has another Bjorkman staffer bitten the dust? Looks like big campaign staff exodus took place.

I’m still hearing chatter that the Tim Bjorkman for Congress Campaign continues to have problems hanging on to staff.  The latest? Word is filtering out that yet another staff member has departed, this time Bjorkman’s Comms Director, Kristin Hayward.

She’d been around since late last year, based on this press release, as well as this notice in the Argus:

and according to his campaign finance reports, she’d been on the payroll at least through May 20th. But now I’m hearing she is no longer there, which appears to be borne out by a google search. If you look for Kristin’s name in connection with the Campaign you get a number of links, such as this…

But clicking on them gives you this sad twitter notice…

The latest Bjorkman Campaign Finance report shows she was last paid on 5/20.

As we look at the staffers through the campaign finance reports, at least on the surface, it seems there is a defection of campaign staffers from Tim Bjorkman’s campaign in the last year, replacing the Comms Director, West River Director, and at least one staffer East River.

Brooke Abdallah, who was publicized in the above press release from the Argus as his fundraising and West River Coordinator, as well as his volunteer coordinator Kate Heisinger are both noticeably absent from the Bjorkman campaign payroll in the July Quarterly Report filed last month.

What you do see in the report are a number of new salary recipients, Chad Peterson, Kaleb Peterson, Jesse Chad Nelson, Alexander Goldstein, and new comms director Tom Lawrence who all received their first paycheck on 5/30.

If we’re going by the reports of departures, as well as what is and isn’t on the campaign finance reports, I’m sure it’s just coincidence that the gender balance of the campaign seems to be taking a hard shift towards manliness, as all three departures were female, and the incoming staffers are not.

Tim Bjorkman July FEC Report by Pat Powers on Scribd

Regardless, the campaign seems to have a high turnover rate in some key positions, resulting in what appears to have been a big campaign shakeup in May.

Are we going to see any changes in the campaign message going forward? And will there be a further staff exodus?

We’ll see when the next campaign finance report is due.