The Punk Rock Republican

Frank Mickadeit has a fascinating profile over two days of Republican political consultant Jimmy Camp, California's punk rockin' political "gym rat" who drank to excess, took a lot of drugs, was stabbed in hotel room and would disappear for days.

Now, Camp is working for Janet Nguyen, monitoring the recount of her race for Orange County supervisor, and expects to work for Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign. The saga during the Steve Poizner campaign:

"Camp's well-known penchant to pull campaign all-nighters is not just borne of a desire to win. He has chronic insomnia. This led to near-disastrous results last fall while he was running Steve Poizner's campaign for state insurance commissioner. I would go to political events and would hear people ask each other, 'Have you seen Jimmy Camp?' Nobody did. For weeks.

"As Camp explained it over breakfast Monday, he hadn't slept for five days when he found himself watching a TV newscast in which the reporter was saying Camp was being sought by police for theft. Camp immediately packed his guitars, put them in storage and fled into the Sierra, telling no one. 'I ended up in Yosemite, hiding out for three days,' he says."

OC Blog has a pix of Camp here. He sounds like a legend in the making. Check out Mickadeit's story. Part One. Part Two.