Two Republicans, two Democrats. Two firings, two stonewallings. Two weeks.
Since Labor Day alone, the 2006 campaign season has witnessed a flurry of mini-scandals wherein a federal campaign has gotten in over its head with some online activity or another involving political blogs, usually with the intent of doing a little friendly harm to their opponents’ image — but invariably the whole thing blows up in their face.
As we’ve seen here previously, the Internet has tempted campaigns (and journalists) to do things that might initially seem in their best interest, but really aren’t. Beltway-based brick and mortar campaign operatives often disdain the blogosphere, where they think think “anything goes.” and so when the time comes they decide they want to leverage the blogopshere, they think anything goes. They’re wrong, of course. It would behoove political operatives to respect the medium and try to understand it before they try to engage it (let alone try to exploit it).
Until they do, here’s a handy chart comparing the various players, circumstances and issues surrounding the latest campaign blog scandals:
| OFFENDING CAMPAIGN | Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH) | Rep. Ben Cardin (D-MD) | State Sen. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) | Atty Amy Klobuchar (DFL-MN) |
| AGGRIEVED PARTIES | NH blogs Blue Granite, NH-02 Progressive, The Yankee Doodler, Paul Hodes (D) campaign | LG Michael Steele (R) campaign, Kweise Mfume, arguably Cardin, Jews | Blue Jersey, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) | Rep. Mark Kennedy (R) campaign, GOP consultant Scott Howell |
| ACCUSATION | Bass House office secretly concern-trolled NH liberal blogs | Staffer wrote too-revealing secret campaign diary as blog | Kean campaign secretly concern-trolled BlueJersey | Klobuchar employees viewed illegally-obtained forthcoming Kennedy TV spot |
| THE ACCUSED | Unknown Hill staffer(s) | Now-former Cardin employee Ursula Gruber | Kean flack Jill Hazelbaker, unknown staffer(s) | MN blogger Noah Kunin, Klobuchar ex-flack Tara McGuinness |
| INTERNET SLEUTH(S) | NH bloggers MissLaura, Keener, Republic Not Empire | Wizbang’s Kevin Aylward | Blue Jersey’s Juan Melli | N/A |
| TROUBLESOME BLOG | N/A | Persuasionatrix | N/A | Blanked-Out |
| SOCK PUPPETS | IndyNH, IndieNH @ 143.231.249.141 | N/A | usedtobeblue, cleanupnj, AmadeusNJ @ 70.90.20.85 | N/A |
| MSM COVERAGE | Sun, Post, BET, AP | Times, Record, Ledger, AP | Pioneer Press, AP | |
| BLOG COVERAGE | Daily Kos, ThinkProgress, Mia Culpa | Mary Katharine Ham, Insider Politics, Washington Prowler, Red State, Rhymes With Right, Atlas Shrugs, Alabama Liberation Front, Soccer Dad, Jessica Cutler | Daily Kos, Skippy, Steve Gilliard, Blanton’s And Ashton’s, MyDD, Pam’s House Blend, Kid Oakland, Beltway Blogroll, Blogometer | Power Line, Kennedy vs. the Machine, MN Publius, Minnesota Democrats Exposed, Wizbang, Beltway Blogroll |
| OUTCOME | Gruber fired | Denials to NYT, AP, etc | McGuinness fired, Kunin apologized, FBI may investigate | |
| REMAINING QUESTIONS | Was Gruber a senior staffer or junior staffer? | Will someone fess up? Maybe Hazelbaker? | Why did Klobuchar camp wait to report it? Was it actually illegal? | |
| ONGOING? | Maybe | Maybe | Yes | Yes |
And after the jump, some additional thoughts:
- In late ‘04 and early ‘05, then-aide to Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R-MD), Joseph Steffen was caught spreading rumors about Baltimore Mayor O’Malley (the (correctly) presumed ‘06 Democratic nominee for governor), and was dismissed. The difference with Ms. Gruber is that she was fired for spreading the truth — and much faster.
- You know, that Persuasionatrix blog was really pretty good, if you can put aside the epithets. Alas, the lack of self-censorship that made it so compelling is also what ended up bringing it down.
- The IP addressed used by the Bass office to troll the NH liberal blogs is the exact same shared IP address other House offices have used to vandalize/edit Wikipedia. The most recent example (and perhaps the most amusing) being Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-MN).
- So perhaps it should come as no surprise that the IP address associated with the Kean campaign has also been flagged for making unhelpful edits to Wikipedia, especially to the page for Sen. Menendez.
- Unlike the concern troll sock puppets (concern puppets?) at Blue Jersey, IndieNH appeared on the Internets long before the current scandal — in fact, long before one of the bloggers who ended up catching him (or her).
Great round-up. Thanks for stating the situation as ongoing. Keep up the good work.
In the Kean “concern trolling/astroturfing” (Astroturfgate? Doesn’t really sing, does it?), the Kean campaign unintentionally turned it into bigger news than it had to be. Because they let the Bluejersey folks control the story and just issued denials and tried to laugh it off, with a bit of a sneer for good measure, and included an outright and provable lie or two in the mix, the media ran with it. I don’t think the media likes being lied to outright. You can spin them like a gyroscope (mmmmm….gyro), but don’t lie to them outright because it is foolish and they love to play “gotcha”. Anyway, the story wound up in the Star Ledger, the New York Times, the New York Daily News, and on the AP and UPI news services. It also got shown on ABC-7 news (that’s TV for you folks outside the New York-Metropolitan area). Hazelbaker, the Kean campaign spokesperson, could have said, “I better investigate, and sorry if anyone was offended. We’ll discipline the low level staffer who did this as soon as we decide who to scapegoat.” Instead, she denied and then claimed the IP address was no longer in use as aof a month previous, except it was on emails she sent out under her own names a few days before.
Whoopsies! How’d that happen?
I would say more, but it’s lunchtime and now I have to go get a gyro.
Mmmmmmm…gyro.
DBK, great points. I’ve always said the media loves to go after small, easily provable lies, and you’re exactly right here: That’s precisely what happened with Kean.
And re gyro… LOL!
In the Klobuchar column, the Internet sleuth was Minnesota Democrats Exposed, which is written by Michael Brodkorb, who also happens to be the sock puppet in this one.
Incredibly, MN bloggers have been unable to get the Minnesota media to look into the fact that Michael Brodkorb is a paid consultant to the Mark Kennedy campaign, a paid consultant with Weber Johnson, a PR firm doing work for the Republicans, and yet also runs a stand alone attack blog which is taken at face value by the local media as a news source without ever providing any context.
Time for a blogger ethics panel!!!
Lotta emm-ess-emm coverage of the Bass scandal today.
Well, one must assume that these types of “little tricks” are all too common in the virtual world of campaigning, so it really is a tempest in a teapot, and doesn’t address the real issues of campaign finance shenanigans and voter manipulation/fraud (isn’t there an emergency spending bill up to fund states who have lost control of their new electronic voting machines?). G
uess they haven’t learned to hire some tech savy trolls.
Tor anyone?