Rice Campaign Vets on Board

Now officially in the general election race against U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, Democratic state Sen. Andrew Rice is getting campaign help from the national party.

The Rice campaign announced today that his campaign manager will be Geri Prado, who worked on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign. In the last election cycle, she was a top aide on the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Rice also named Phil Singer as a communications consultant. Singer worked for Clinton’s presidential campaign and for New York Sen. Charles Schumer, who is now chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Rice got about 60 percent of the vote on Tuesday in the Democratic primary against an opponent who didn’t campaign or spend money, showing that he still has a lot of work to do getting his name out as he tries to unseat the well-known Republican incumbent.

Bringing in experienced campaign vets from out of state isn’t unusual. Many political operatives, from both parties, have nomadic careers, following the races from state to state.

But they certainly don’t guarantee success for a candidate. Former Rep. Brad Carson, the Democrat who ran against now U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn in 2004, had plenty of outside help and money.

That campaign left a painful amount of debt for the state Democratic party and some resentment toward the out-of-state operatives who came in to run the campaign in a state they didn’t know.