* She received the call on Tuesday
* She spoke to the East Iowa Field Director
* The Romney camp asked her if she was willing to talk to the press
* The press called her
She’s like 70 years old.
I would gather that Roth went through a similar process.
That took me all of 3 minutes to confirm with her.
If we could all take off your tinfoil hats we might actually get somewhere.
Yeah. The gig is up. And I fully expected the people that work for the OTHER guy’s campaigns to release this damning evidence. Imagine people that are working for Romney actually taking note when their candidate is being trashed. Outrageous!!
This is much ado about nothing. It only makes sense that Romney folks would break the story. If you were on the Payroll of a candidate and you received a phone call trashing the religion of your horse, wouldn’t you call the campaign to make them aware of it? Of course you would. Besides, if you were a Giuliani, McCain, etc. supporter, you would likely just shrug it off and go on your way.
Why do you keep wasting your time on conspiratorial theories?
You guys have no ability to think rationally or reason if you think that somehow this implicates Romney. Only people with an agenda could think this means Romney might have been behind the calls.
It is only logical that if a Romney supporter was called they would notify the campaign because they would want the calls to be stopped by shining a light the situation. Romney has enough supporters in Iowa that anyone making polling calls will talk to Romney supporters.
The only way this could somehow be significant is if you are silly enough to believe that no calls were ever made by any firm and Romney’s supporters made everything up. If you believe that the calls took place then the credibility of the recipient doesn’t matter. They could have called Mitt Romney’s 5 sons and that wouldn’t matter unless you doubt that the calls took place.
Once again if you think this advances the story then I have to question either your ability to think rationally, your intelligence or your agenda. Perhaps all three in some cases.
From Soren Dayton — UPDATE: Jonathan Martin had reported a non-Romney supporting phone call recipient.
Ughhhh to the highest possible decible! I feel like that we have all been magically transported to a giant mythical high school instead of the real world! Wake me up when things we return to normal.
can someone tell me a tangible difference between pushpollgate and phoneyfred.org other than we dont know who is behind the former and that Mitt Romney’s campaign *WAS* behind the latter.
Confirmed the same details that I asked Rose. (got called Tuesday, told Romney folks about it, Romney folks called back to have her talk to the press, etc…)
I asked her specifically about not disclosing that she was a paid staffer.
She asked: “What? Why? What do you mean?”
She added: “I don’t remember anyone asking me anything”.
OK. Yes, they should have disclosed it. But come on folks! These are septuagenarians. Cut them some slack.
Clearing This Up Once and For All
Or… A Lesson in Jumping to Conclusions Too Quickly and Making a Fool of Yourself.
From Camp Romney this morning: The anti-Thompson site has no direct affiliation to our campaign, and we had no knowledge of its development.
Once we received inquiries about the site, we discovered it was created by an individual who parked the site temporarily on the company server space of a firm whose financial partner is a consultant to the campaign- Mr. Tompkins. Mr. Tompkins also had absolutely no knowledge about the development of the site or that it was temporarily parked on the firm’s server.
We made it clear that we did not approve of the site and asked for immediate action to make sure it was again in no way affiliated with the campaign.
The person responsible is not an employee of ours, but we took immediate action…
So… someone created the site (not part of Romney’s campaign), parked the site on a company server (not part of Romney’s campaign), of which one of the partners to that company (not part of Romney’s campaign) had one employee who was a consultant to the Romney campaign (finally – part of Romney’s campaign!).
And this is supposed to look bad… how?
I find it ironic that Justin is doing the damage control in pushpollgate on the day we learn that the White House wheeled out Scott Mcclellan to lie for the Bush administration.
post 15 is a mittbot generated smoke screen.
too bad mittbots aren’t the sole source on what constitutes a “clearing this up once and for all”
From eyeon08 The Romney campaign has thrown one of their consultants under the bus for it:
Sources are telling FITSNews that Mitt Romney’s South Carolina campaign organization has fired consultant Wesley Donehue in an effort to make him the scapegoat for yesterday’s PR disaster.
FITSNews continues with:
Romney’s spokesman also says Donehue is “not an employee of ours,†yet Donehue’s “On The Mark†direct mail firm received $81,225.02 from the Romney campaign during the second quarter of 2007, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
So in one article, Rose Kramer, who is 70 years old, said that she got the call at 8 p.m. on Tuesday and in the other article she said it was at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
Probably the most logical explanation for this discrepancy is that she’s old. You tend to not remember things perfectly after a while, so nothing sinister there. Whoever wrote that one article accusing her of being a liar I think is very rude.
But almost half of Huckabee’s supporters (48 percent) said they would definitely vote for him in January and only a quarter said there was a good chance that they would change their minds before the caucuses. In contrast, just 29 percent of Romney’s backers said they would definitely vote for him, while 42 percent said there was a good chance that they could vote for someone else at the caucuses….
…In July, Romney had the lead on “most honest and trustworthy” at 21 percent. He has risen to 25 percent, but Huckabee jumped from 10 percent to 26 percent.
That last paragraph in #9 goes for anyone who actually believes Romney may have been behind these calls.
For some of you this may be impossible, but try to think rationally and about Romney at the same time. The only reason Romney would make such calls is if he thought it would benefit his campaign. If he were behind it there would be only two ways this could benefit his campaign, both are easily disproved by using rational thinking.
First, maybe Romney wanted to get information about voter responses to this type of questioning so that they could use this later in the campaign. If this were true it would make no sense to make this issue public or to make a big deal out of it after it became public. They would know that the calls could be traced back to the campaign, which again would entirely defeat the purpose of making a bid deal out of it and feigning outrage.
Second, maybe Romney wanted to cast blame on another campaign to damage them and to gain sympathy. Well for this to make sense Romney would have to know that this couldn’t come back to bite him by being found out. That would mean he would not have uses Western Watt to make the calls because of the obvious incidental connections. You may dislike Romney, but you have to admit he is smart and has run a great campaign from a strategic standpoint. There is no way they would choose a firm that could be connected so easily when the stakes of being caught in that type of deception would be so high.
This almost certainly came from a 3rd party. Even if the third party source is a Rudy or McCain supporter, unless a candidate had knowledge about this it shouldn’t hurt them. It also could have come from a liberal who wants to see Romney lose or from someone who doesn’t care about politics at all, but who is anti-Mormon and wants to see Romney defeated based on bigotry.
sampo, can you do anything beyond call names, dodge facts, and spread lies of your own?
Mitt Romney’s SC campaign never fired Wesley Donehue, because Wesley Donehue was never an employee of the Romney campaign. Romney employed TTS Strategies, where Warren Tompkins (Romney guy), Donehue, and Heath Thompson (Rudy guy) were all partners.
Also, the $81k number you mentioned was not paid to Donehue’s firm, but to Mr. Tompkins directly beginning in 2007. TTS was paid $35k for consulting back in 2006.
Mr. Donehue had “parked the site temporarily†on the server space of a company where Tompkins and Terry Sullivan were financial partners.
To repeat MattC’s point…someone created the site (not part of Romney’s campaign), parked the site on a company server (not part of Romney’s campaign), of which one of the partners to that company (not part of Romney’s campaign) had one employee who was a consultant to the Romney campaign (finally – part of Romney’s campaign!).
Mitt Romney’s SC campaign never fired Wesley Donehue.
Whenever i get paid eighty one thousand two hundred twenty five dollars and two cents to do work for someone I consider them to be my employer. When they stop paying me and have no work for me, I consider that being fired.
But what do I know? I consider it hiring illegals if I pay someone that puts illegals to work on my lawn.
sampo, learn to read. Once that’s accomplished, a discussion becomes more fruitful.
Donehue never got paid $81k. Got that one? As for the lawn workers flap, nice to see that you’re still advocating that a Presidential candidate use racial profiling.
Are you ever going to get honest? Or simply more frantic?
So? Why is that an ah hah? It is their job to be vigilant, and if they’re getting anti-Romney calls and working for that cause, of course they’re going to do something about it.
If I was working for Giuliani’s campaign and got anti-Giuliani anti-Catholic, his kids won’t talk to him phone calls, or wind of them, I would go after it. It’s my job.
This doesn’t provide proof or implicate anyone. It’s not a twist.
1. So far you’ve dedicated countless pixels to pushpoll conspiracy theories…
2. changed the subject to the phoneyfred website (and been wrong on several counts there)…
3. then changed the subject to illegal lawn workers where you’re also wrong…
4. then changed the subject to a driveby swipe at Romney’s position on the definition of torture…
5. then changed the subject to Jay Garrity.
And you actually expect any sane person to keep following you down the rabbit hole? Sorry man. I’ve got a family, and I just realized this discussion is heading nowhere.
Easy. It is a push poll and they want to weaken the Mitt supporters so they slander his religion It doesnt make any sense to make slanderous calls to those voters who aren’t supporting Mitt anyway.
Those of you that continue to desparately try and link this back to Romney without any evidence to support your claims are really grasping for straws here. Let’s all take a step back . . . breathe a little . . . and then let the NH AG do his investigation and release his findings. The only people that seem to try and link this to Romney come across as desparate conspiracy theorists, trying to do anything from keeping Romney from winning the GOP nomination. Like I have stated in earlier posts, it is evident that your views are miles from being a rational thought, and until you can show some evidence for your claims, and until you are willing to do some simple research into your bogus assumptions (Thanks Justin for doing their work for them) . . I would ask that you kindly shut the (fill in the blank) up.
Very well said your #35. As if such perpetrators would try to call someone that they know is not Romney supporter. Why would the waist their time?
Somebody needs to tell Soren Dayton and Erick Erickson that the whole point of push polling against Romney is to change some of his supporters views toward him. I think in their excitement to blame for his own smearing, they forgot that. How can Romney supporters not support him financially or perhaps even be involved with his campaign in one way or another?
I can’t believe the great lengths that some fellow Republicans will go to in order to smear another fellow Republican. Let’s be clear on one thing, Romney is the victim here, not the aggressor. I can’t think of any situation where someone was not only ruthlessly smeared like this, but then also double smeared for doing his own smearing! Alternate universe..
Has anyone else ever seen another situation that closely parallels this?
I think that Sampo either works for the Clinton camp or used to. He is very good at posting material that has absolutley no fact behind them. He must figure that if he says them enough it makes them true. I think that I read somewhere that he was a criminal. Must be true because I think I saw it on another post, right?
Plainly Romney is concerned that he has spent umpteen million in Iowa and Huckabee, who has spent about nineteen dollars, has tied in the polls. What a scream!
November 21st, 2007 at 12:10 am
Can you say the Gig Is Up?
November 21st, 2007 at 12:11 am
Silly and siller.
I just spoke to one of the women in question
(I woke the poor woman up!)
She confirmed:
* She received the call on Tuesday
* She spoke to the East Iowa Field Director
* The Romney camp asked her if she was willing to talk to the press
* The press called her
She’s like 70 years old.
I would gather that Roth went through a similar process.
That took me all of 3 minutes to confirm with her.
If we could all take off your tinfoil hats we might actually get somewhere.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:15 am
How the hell do you know the numbers of all these people Justin?
November 21st, 2007 at 12:17 am
This is starting to look interesting!
November 21st, 2007 at 12:19 am
Yeah. The gig is up. And I fully expected the people that work for the OTHER guy’s campaigns to release this damning evidence. Imagine people that are working for Romney actually taking note when their candidate is being trashed. Outrageous!!
November 21st, 2007 at 12:21 am
#3 Gosh. I dunno. I guess I can use an online white pages directory and look up a person’s name and city.
(sorry, I’m punchy now)
November 21st, 2007 at 12:21 am
Sounds like they called the wrong people.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:23 am
This is much ado about nothing. It only makes sense that Romney folks would break the story. If you were on the Payroll of a candidate and you received a phone call trashing the religion of your horse, wouldn’t you call the campaign to make them aware of it? Of course you would. Besides, if you were a Giuliani, McCain, etc. supporter, you would likely just shrug it off and go on your way.
Why do you keep wasting your time on conspiratorial theories?
November 21st, 2007 at 12:29 am
You guys have no ability to think rationally or reason if you think that somehow this implicates Romney. Only people with an agenda could think this means Romney might have been behind the calls.
It is only logical that if a Romney supporter was called they would notify the campaign because they would want the calls to be stopped by shining a light the situation. Romney has enough supporters in Iowa that anyone making polling calls will talk to Romney supporters.
The only way this could somehow be significant is if you are silly enough to believe that no calls were ever made by any firm and Romney’s supporters made everything up. If you believe that the calls took place then the credibility of the recipient doesn’t matter. They could have called Mitt Romney’s 5 sons and that wouldn’t matter unless you doubt that the calls took place.
Once again if you think this advances the story then I have to question either your ability to think rationally, your intelligence or your agenda. Perhaps all three in some cases.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:34 am
From Soren Dayton — UPDATE: Jonathan Martin had reported a non-Romney supporting phone call recipient.
Ughhhh to the highest possible decible! I feel like that we have all been magically transported to a giant mythical high school instead of the real world! Wake me up when things we return to normal.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:38 am
10, thanks to my tip on his blog, Soren posted that update. He and I tend to go where the facts lead us.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:39 am
can someone tell me a tangible difference between pushpollgate and phoneyfred.org other than we dont know who is behind the former and that Mitt Romney’s campaign *WAS* behind the latter.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:42 am
Just spoke to the other woman (Marshan)
(woke her up too)
Confirmed the same details that I asked Rose. (got called Tuesday, told Romney folks about it, Romney folks called back to have her talk to the press, etc…)
I asked her specifically about not disclosing that she was a paid staffer.
She asked: “What? Why? What do you mean?”
She added: “I don’t remember anyone asking me anything”.
OK. Yes, they should have disclosed it. But come on folks! These are septuagenarians. Cut them some slack.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:44 am
Justin, what is YOUR role in all of this?
Seems like you are the chief spinner for Mitt, no?
My post is here: http://flapsblog.com/?p=5916
November 21st, 2007 at 12:44 am
Sampo.
I love how you pretend to go where “the facts lead you”, and then your very next post is outright dishonest. From MattC: http://race42008.com/2007/09/11/clearing-this-up-once-and-for-all/
Clearing This Up Once and For All
Or… A Lesson in Jumping to Conclusions Too Quickly and Making a Fool of Yourself.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:48 am
I find it ironic that Justin is doing the damage control in pushpollgate on the day we learn that the White House wheeled out Scott Mcclellan to lie for the Bush administration.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:49 am
Oh, nevermind, sampo. You’ve just been outdone in the irony department for the night by Flap just calling Justin a spinner.
Good grief you guys! Look in the mirror!
November 21st, 2007 at 12:56 am
Flap. I’m not paid by the campaign and I am not an official anything with the campaign.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:56 am
post 15 is a mittbot generated smoke screen.
too bad mittbots aren’t the sole source on what constitutes a “clearing this up once and for all”
From eyeon08
The Romney campaign has thrown one of their consultants under the bus for it:
Sources are telling FITSNews that Mitt Romney’s South Carolina campaign organization has fired consultant Wesley Donehue in an effort to make him the scapegoat for yesterday’s PR disaster.
FITSNews continues with:
Romney’s spokesman also says Donehue is “not an employee of ours,†yet Donehue’s “On The Mark†direct mail firm received $81,225.02 from the Romney campaign during the second quarter of 2007, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:58 am
time to call a spade a spade and a lie a lie.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:58 am
So in one article, Rose Kramer, who is 70 years old, said that she got the call at 8 p.m. on Tuesday and in the other article she said it was at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
Probably the most logical explanation for this discrepancy is that she’s old. You tend to not remember things perfectly after a while, so nothing sinister there. Whoever wrote that one article accusing her of being a liar I think is very rude.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:06 am
POST.
THIS.
POLL.
NOW.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2007/11/20/ST2007112002497.html?hpid=topnews
Iowa:
Romney 28
Huckabee 24
M.O.E +/- 5%
But almost half of Huckabee’s supporters (48 percent) said they would definitely vote for him in January and only a quarter said there was a good chance that they would change their minds before the caucuses. In contrast, just 29 percent of Romney’s backers said they would definitely vote for him, while 42 percent said there was a good chance that they could vote for someone else at the caucuses….
…In July, Romney had the lead on “most honest and trustworthy” at 21 percent. He has risen to 25 percent, but Huckabee jumped from 10 percent to 26 percent.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:08 am
Of course you aren’t Justin. But, why are you the designated spinner?
Lucky assignment?
But, then again, Hugh Hewitt hasn’t endorsed a candidate yet either.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:08 am
That last paragraph in #9 goes for anyone who actually believes Romney may have been behind these calls.
For some of you this may be impossible, but try to think rationally and about Romney at the same time. The only reason Romney would make such calls is if he thought it would benefit his campaign. If he were behind it there would be only two ways this could benefit his campaign, both are easily disproved by using rational thinking.
First, maybe Romney wanted to get information about voter responses to this type of questioning so that they could use this later in the campaign. If this were true it would make no sense to make this issue public or to make a big deal out of it after it became public. They would know that the calls could be traced back to the campaign, which again would entirely defeat the purpose of making a bid deal out of it and feigning outrage.
Second, maybe Romney wanted to cast blame on another campaign to damage them and to gain sympathy. Well for this to make sense Romney would have to know that this couldn’t come back to bite him by being found out. That would mean he would not have uses Western Watt to make the calls because of the obvious incidental connections. You may dislike Romney, but you have to admit he is smart and has run a great campaign from a strategic standpoint. There is no way they would choose a firm that could be connected so easily when the stakes of being caught in that type of deception would be so high.
This almost certainly came from a 3rd party. Even if the third party source is a Rudy or McCain supporter, unless a candidate had knowledge about this it shouldn’t hurt them. It also could have come from a liberal who wants to see Romney lose or from someone who doesn’t care about politics at all, but who is anti-Mormon and wants to see Romney defeated based on bigotry.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:09 am
sampo, can you do anything beyond call names, dodge facts, and spread lies of your own?
Mitt Romney’s SC campaign never fired Wesley Donehue, because Wesley Donehue was never an employee of the Romney campaign. Romney employed TTS Strategies, where Warren Tompkins (Romney guy), Donehue, and Heath Thompson (Rudy guy) were all partners.
Also, the $81k number you mentioned was not paid to Donehue’s firm, but to Mr. Tompkins directly beginning in 2007. TTS was paid $35k for consulting back in 2006.
Mr. Donehue had “parked the site temporarily†on the server space of a company where Tompkins and Terry Sullivan were financial partners.
To repeat MattC’s point…someone created the site (not part of Romney’s campaign), parked the site on a company server (not part of Romney’s campaign), of which one of the partners to that company (not part of Romney’s campaign) had one employee who was a consultant to the Romney campaign (finally – part of Romney’s campaign!).
November 21st, 2007 at 1:16 am
Mitt Romney’s SC campaign never fired Wesley Donehue.
Whenever i get paid eighty one thousand two hundred twenty five dollars and two cents to do work for someone I consider them to be my employer. When they stop paying me and have no work for me, I consider that being fired.
But what do I know? I consider it hiring illegals if I pay someone that puts illegals to work on my lawn.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:19 am
And we all wonder why Mitt is woefully inept at telling us what torture is.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:19 am
sampo, learn to read. Once that’s accomplished, a discussion becomes more fruitful.
Donehue never got paid $81k. Got that one? As for the lawn workers flap, nice to see that you’re still advocating that a Presidential candidate use racial profiling.
Are you ever going to get honest? Or simply more frantic?
November 21st, 2007 at 1:23 am
I get it, plausible deniability via proxy. I just don’t have much use for it in a president, nor do I have much respect for people who keep using it.
BTW. whatever happened to Jay Garrity, didn’t he get fired?
November 21st, 2007 at 1:23 am
So? Why is that an ah hah? It is their job to be vigilant, and if they’re getting anti-Romney calls and working for that cause, of course they’re going to do something about it.
If I was working for Giuliani’s campaign and got anti-Giuliani anti-Catholic, his kids won’t talk to him phone calls, or wind of them, I would go after it. It’s my job.
This doesn’t provide proof or implicate anyone. It’s not a twist.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:29 am
Hold on sampo. I’m losing count.
1. So far you’ve dedicated countless pixels to pushpoll conspiracy theories…
2. changed the subject to the phoneyfred website (and been wrong on several counts there)…
3. then changed the subject to illegal lawn workers where you’re also wrong…
4. then changed the subject to a driveby swipe at Romney’s position on the definition of torture…
5. then changed the subject to Jay Garrity.
And you actually expect any sane person to keep following you down the rabbit hole? Sorry man. I’ve got a family, and I just realized this discussion is heading nowhere.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:30 am
But, why did they call two paid staffers?
Coincidence?
Doubtful…….
These folks either were tools to spin the story for the Romney campaign or set-up or both.
And, the MSM dropped the ball in not asking them for complete disclosure.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:32 am
I gotta make the mymanmitt crew make their dues somehow. they seem easily baited in a post pushpollgate era.
bottom line: slick willie aint got nothing on slick willard.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:36 am
32, you wanna segway into Rocky Anderson and Robert Lichfield? I’m game.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:37 am
Easy. It is a push poll and they want to weaken the Mitt supporters so they slander his religion It doesnt make any sense to make slanderous calls to those voters who aren’t supporting Mitt anyway.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:50 am
Those of you that continue to desparately try and link this back to Romney without any evidence to support your claims are really grasping for straws here. Let’s all take a step back . . . breathe a little . . . and then let the NH AG do his investigation and release his findings. The only people that seem to try and link this to Romney come across as desparate conspiracy theorists, trying to do anything from keeping Romney from winning the GOP nomination. Like I have stated in earlier posts, it is evident that your views are miles from being a rational thought, and until you can show some evidence for your claims, and until you are willing to do some simple research into your bogus assumptions (Thanks Justin for doing their work for them) . . I would ask that you kindly shut the (fill in the blank) up.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:51 am
Nowandlater,
Very well said your #35. As if such perpetrators would try to call someone that they know is not Romney supporter. Why would the waist their time?
Somebody needs to tell Soren Dayton and Erick Erickson that the whole point of push polling against Romney is to change some of his supporters views toward him. I think in their excitement to blame for his own smearing, they forgot that. How can Romney supporters not support him financially or perhaps even be involved with his campaign in one way or another?
I can’t believe the great lengths that some fellow Republicans will go to in order to smear another fellow Republican. Let’s be clear on one thing, Romney is the victim here, not the aggressor. I can’t think of any situation where someone was not only ruthlessly smeared like this, but then also double smeared for doing his own smearing! Alternate universe..
Has anyone else ever seen another situation that closely parallels this?
November 21st, 2007 at 1:54 am
waist = waste,
Need that proof read function..
November 21st, 2007 at 8:38 am
I think that Sampo either works for the Clinton camp or used to. He is very good at posting material that has absolutley no fact behind them. He must figure that if he says them enough it makes them true. I think that I read somewhere that he was a criminal. Must be true because I think I saw it on another post, right?
November 21st, 2007 at 9:32 am
Plainly Romney is concerned that he has spent umpteen million in Iowa and Huckabee, who has spent about nineteen dollars, has tied in the polls. What a scream!
November 21st, 2007 at 9:53 am
So Romeny supporters got called, and they made the calls public. How does this prove anything?