As you are probably aware, Salem Communications recently purchased RedState from Eagle Publishing. One of the first things I begged of my new corporate overlords was a new right hand at RedState. I’ve been without for a while. I get several thousand emails a day — and that does not include spam. A chunk of it is from the contact email list. I do my best to stay on top of it, but just a few hours away from the computer leaves me several hundred emails behind.

It’s kind of exhausting. On top of that, I’m managing television appearances, have two hours of radio a day, and spend a great deal of time doing radio interviews for RedState. It’s kind of busy, not that this is a bad thing. But it gets overwhelming. In seven years, I’ve taken less than two weeks of time off.

Now, RedState is like a second wife and a third child. So I have a hard time giving up any control anyway. But I know I need to and I know I need a stubborn hard headed soul to make me. Aaron Gardner fits the bill. Haha.

Aaron has been a long time front page writer at RedState, worked for a while at Media Trackers Colorado, then headed to Ken Buck’s Senate campaign to do communications. The moment I learned of the deal between Eagle and Salem, I started lobbying hard to get Aaron here. And so he is.

Aaron is going to be filling writing, promoting quality user content from the diaries, and the day to day management stuff that I often get too far behind on. I gave him a long job description and he has to fetch coffee for the contributors. We’re giving him the title Managing Editor only because my new bosses wouldn’t let me call him “Erick’s Minion.” And he’s not yellow.

So, everyone welcome Aaron, not that he’s really left. But welcome Aaron to his first official day on the job and complain to him about posting a daily open thread.