| As any regular Blue Jersey reader knows, last week our uber-leader Juan Melli caught the Kean Jr. campaign's press secretary posting comments where she pretended to be a disenchanted Democrat. It got a lot of coverage, but most folks considered it an isolated incident.
Not so! Apparently in NH-2 the policy director for Rep. Charlie Bass (R) decided to do a little astroturfing of his own on liberal blogs, and he too got caught.
A lead staffer in U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass' office resigned Tuesday after admitting to posting fake messages on political blogs.
Tad Furtado, the No. 2 staffer in Bass' Washington office, resigned after it was revealed that he posed as a Democrat on liberal blogs. Bass said that Furtado posed as a supporter of Bass opponent Paul Hodes but then discussed how difficult it would be to beat Bass.
It's a movement! The Republican Staffer Lying On The Internet movement! Not, surely, as good as the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacree movement, but a pretty good one none-the-less.
The difference between the Bass campaign's response and the Kean Jr. campaign's response is the most telling, however. Kean Jr. stood up on TV and defended press secretary Jill Hazelbaker, and did nothing to determine whether she or anyone else in his campaign was playing dirty pool with the Internet.
Bass fired his policy director, someone described as "one of his most trusted staffers":
"Tad Furtado posted to political Web sites from my office without my knowledge or authorization," Bass said in a written statement. "I have referred this matter to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct for their review."
Staff members in Bass' Concord office said they were shocked to hear Furtado was responsible for the postings. He was described as a rising young star and one of the congressman's most trusted staffers.
The fact is that someone on Kean Jr.'s staff -- or to be generous someone with access to the Kean Jr. computers in his office -- engaged in sock puppetry and lied on a public forum to support his campaign. That's wrong. Charlie Bass knows what to do, but Tom Kean Jr. is strangely confused about the right course of action.
When will Kean Jr. stand up and be the "reformer" he likes to play on TV? When will he decide that political dirty tricks are wrong and to root out the wrongdoers in his campaign?
I'm not holding my breath. |
