This is just awful.

[MrPeepers]

"On Tuesday, a young man came into our Creston office and said he was a resident of Red Oak, Iowa. He claimed he was in town for business, working at a local farm. He asked numerous questions about what our staff did, the territory they covered, and what type of folks we were calling in Creston. Our staff was immediately suspicious.

The next day, a different young man came into the office and identified himself as Mark Evans. He said that he was the new manager at the local HYVEE, and that he and his wife just moved from Georgia. He started asking questions about our operation and began snooping around the office. Our staffers were confident they had seen him wearing a Dean sticker around town, so they asked him why he had come into the office. He said that he was an undecided Iowa caucus-goer, and was interested in politics.

Today, this second man, 'Mark Evans,' returned to the Creston office and admitted that he and his friend had lied, and that they were employed by your campaign. He identified himself as Mitch Lawson, who moved here from Georgia to work for Dean. According to Mitch, 'We came into your office to find out information and get your calling scripts from you.'"

-John Norris, Iowa Director for the Kerry Campaign

See the whole letter here. http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0108d.html

This really really bothers me. Just... awful.

[liberalhistorian]

1. At the risk of getting royally

flamed, I am really, really, really beginning to doubt Dean and to believe that my sneaky suspicions of him from the start, much as I denied them, were right all along. I'm leaning far more towards Clark now.

[pnziii]

6. Is Dean sneaky?

You make it sound like Dean is the one that authorized this.
Sounds like a couple staffers took it upon themselves to size up the competition.

Nothing illegal there.
Did they hinder Kerry's staff from doing there job?
Did they steal any classified material?

Believe me this stuff goes on all the time, from every candidates staff. They are all trying to get info on the competition.

Happens in business, sports, politics.

Nothing illegal was done and to blame Dean is wrong.
Blame the staffers.

[liberalhistorian]

11. Why is it that Dean people

never see anything wrong with these kinds of dirty tricks unless it's against Dean? Why is it that Dean can do anything he wants, but the other candidates can't or the Dean people have conniption fits?

Excuse me for thinking that tactics like this are incredibly wrong no matter who the candidate is. And it's time Dean people opened their eyes, because this kind of thing appears to be happening more and more in his campaign, whether he's aware of it or not. And something tells me that he is, indeed, aware of it.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pnziii]

19. Why do you assume

That I support Dean. I only stated fact.

[Mass_Liberal]

22. oy don't make the generalization

I'm a dean supporter, and I am absoloutely appauled. However, I don't believe that Dean condones that kind of behavior and neither do you, unless your estimation of Dean is waaaaay off. Whoever is doing these kind of things are not doing the good Doctor a favor, and should seriously think about how they go about helping our campaign.

[pnziii]

2. WHY?

Sounds like they are just sizing up the competition.
It's done in business everyday. If I'm opening up a widget shop, I would certainly go to the local widget shop and ask how business is going. Ask what type of clients they serve.

Nothing illegal about asking about your operation and how it's going.
Nothing illegal about asking who you're calling on. If you are afraid that Dean's people will change the mind of possible Kerry voters then Kerry's message might not be as strong as you think.

[liberalmike27]

3. Sounds like plants

You know, these guys can only get caught if they wanted to be.

I've worried about "plants" in the Dean campaign, as a meet up host for some time. Folks will do almost anythingthese days, sadly, and our entertainment television media is encouraging it with a series of ridiculous "sell your dignity for a dollar" shows.

I think these guys were just posers, who were never Deaniacs anyway, and wanted to make a spectacle. Sounds like the Washington Insider Democrats are using Karl Rove tricks on Dean.

All I can say is that they are really emptying their desperation bag of tricks in this last two weeks, and it's sad, really sad that we get the kind of behavior expected in the National election in the primaries.

[DemDogs]

16. Absolutely unbelievable

Every other campaign in Iowa has been hearing exactly the same kind of stories. Face the fact that campaigns you admire can behave in ways you do not admire. Dean's campaign has asked about people coming into the state and declaring residency and participating in caucuses; they regularly bussed people to Iowa events like Iowa labor meetings where the Minnesotans got out of their cars and became Iowa union members, or so it seemed to anyone scanning the crowd. This charade did not start last week.
And I have a question for you: How would you feel if they were not posers but they were actually Dean supporters acting on instructions from the Dean campaign? Because I think they probably were, and you should ask yourself whether it would make a difference to you if you found out this story was entirely accurate. It should make a difference.

[michaelbmoore]

5. Then why did the Dean Campaign

Fire the two guys?

[pnziii]

7. To satisfy those who think it's wrong

Please show me where it's illegal.

It was the right thing to do to fire them because the other candidates are accusing Dean of bringing in votes to the state ( no evidenc, just acusations) so Dean fired them to keep the others from using it as ammunition.

Plus if these staffers acted on their own then Dean was right to fire them for doing what they did.

You may not agree with the tactic of these staffers, but they all do it even Kerry's people.

[polpilot]

25. As usual Howard Dean does the right thing and moves on. No polling

here. You're fired.

Dean '04...

[davidinalameda]

9. not illegal but certainly unethical

whatever happened to taking the high road in politics

[DemDogs]

17. Illegal to go the caucuses and pose as a resident

[pnziii]

18. Only if you attempt to vote

Not illegal to go into a campaign office and say you live there and ask questions about their candidate

[DemDogs]

21. This kind of sloppy integrity can kill us

I appreciate that you are technically right that what was done was not "illegal" but don't you think we as a party are better than this? I hope so; that's part of the reason I am a Democrat.

[MoonAndSun]

4. this has been discussed on this link....

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=87908>

[lovedems]

8. I don't have my candidate yet but I leaning only towards Clark or Dean

and I just have to say, these threads that totally discredit ANY of the dem nominees is very disheartening to me. Republicans make allegations like this, not dems. Don't do the dirty work for them, they have it mastered all by themselves.

[waltisfrozen]

10. I don't believe it

Lemme get this straight, a terminally lagging campaign releases a letter close to the election complaining of dirty trickes by the front-runner? Sounds fishy to me. Add to that the implausible scenario in which somebody in the midst of a dirty tricks campaign suddenly changes their mind and spills the beans, something about all this just doesn't ring true.

[molly]

12. Ummmm - ever hear of Watergate?

of course, many will defend this. If the Kerry or Clark or Edwards or Lieberman camps did this - this would really be unforgivable.

[polpilot]

14. Kerrygate. 2 people go in for brochures. Good story.

Dean '04...

[dorktv]

26. We have had that happen to us in Arizona. Comes with the territory.

[DemDogs]

15. If Dean's campaign cheats in Iowa, he should withdraw

This is too systematic for it to be a couple of Deaniacs gone astray. There has been talk in Iowa for months of Dean supporters coming from Minnesota (a short drive) and infiltrating the caucuses, and I have yet to hear Dean denounce this tactic. The Dean campaign even asked the state party about people changing their residency to Iowa and how long it took.
It is fine to have volunteers from across the country, but it is not fine to subvert the system and cheat.
This is a very serious complaint. And Creston is small. If they are trying to do it Creston, they can get caught more easily. If they do it elsewhere, will they be caught? I say if they do cheat, Dean should withdraw.

[liberalhistorian]

20. I agree, I used

to lean toward Dean, but I'm really disenchanted with him and I'm beginning to think that these tactics are becoming a standard part of his campaign. I certainly hope not, for his sake and the sake of all of his supporters, but I'm afraid that's where the evidence is pointing.

[dorktv]

27. All campaigns have signed something to be good with this.

[leyton]

23. Close to Bush...

in terms of sinister-ness.

The first time I really knew that Bush was running a nasty campaign was when I found out about his South Carolina primary campaign. McCain had just scored an upset in New Hampshire, so Bush kicked off his SC campaign at Bob Jones University (which, FYI, did not until recently allow interracial dating, and I believe denounces the Catholic church) and then Karl Rove spread lies about McCain having illegitimate children (when actually they adopted).

Now, what Dean's people supposedly did here isn't quite at that level, but the Bush-McCain incident is what came to mind first.

[Tinoire]

24. Joe Trippi, Dean's Campaign Manager - total scum

<snip>

Trippi is nearly hysterical when he calls Campaign Manager Bob Beckel and Deputy Manager Mike Ford in Washington. "He speaks so fast, it was hard to keep up," Beckel recalls. "I said, 'Joe, What's the bottom line? What do you need?' He said, 'I just need permission to do whatever I need to do.' ... I just said OK." But there isn't a lot Trippi can do. He can try to get the Iowa Democratic Party to sell him more tickets. But there's no way they're going to sell him $275,000 worth, which is what Trippi estimates Cranston has bought. And, even if they would, there's no way he can afford to drop that kind of cash on an off-year event. When it comes down to it, Trippi is going to have to get his hands on tickets that have already been sold. Cranston tickets. Lots of them. And yet, once he accepts that proposition, the solution is almost elegant in its simplicity: What's to stop him from just marching right up to Cranston's people and asking for them?

"We started really early in the day," Trippi remembers, reflecting on how he and an Iowa colleague named Tom Cosgrove solved their JJ problem. "They stopped about three miles out the staging area--the Mondale buses coming from Minnesota or wherever they were coming from." What follows is one of the most ambitious political makeovers in history. A team of Mondale aides, led by Cosgrove, plasters the bus with Cranston paraphernalia--stickers, posters, buttons, everything. Three miles down the road, the bus pulls up to the Cranston tent, where a Mondale/Cranston supporter gets out and tells a real Cranston aide he has 52 people on the bus. The aide looks up at the bus, surely admiring the military-like discipline that has brought a busload of Cranston supporters from "Los Angeles or wherever" out to the middle of Iowa this early in the day, and quietly congratulates himself. He promptly hands over 52 tickets.

And it continues like this, through bus after bus of Mondale supporters: Stop three miles up the highway, lather the bus in Cranston paraphernalia, drive on to the Cranston tent, claim your tickets. And the Cranston campaign just keeps forking them over. Happily. Hell, the more buses that show up, the more impressed the Cranston people are by their own handiwork. Never does it occur to them that these busloads of supporters aren't the genuine article. At least not until the real Cranston buses start showing up. "Twenty buses pull up, and they're out of tickets," Trippi says, still amused at the spectacle almost 20 years later. "More Cranston buses keep pulling up, and they don't have the tickets anymore." Score one for Walter Mondale.

<snip>

Trippi was already a veteran of multiple organizing efforts in his native California. That experience paid dividends when California Governor Jerry Brown decided not to challenge Carter for the Democratic nomination. Brown, a longtime supporter of Cesar Chavez's farm-workers union, would have instantly had the farm workers' backing in Arizona had he entered the race. His decision not to run created an opening for Trippi who, on the strength of his relationship with Cesar's son Fernando, helped convince the farm workers to mobilize their shock troops for Kennedy. "They came in like a swat team in Arizona," says one Kennedy campaign official. "In the community, the farm workers are tremendous heroes. They had enormous credibility." On Election Day, Trippi and the farm workers went up and down the so-called Phoenix-Tucson corridor, a population hub in the southcentral part of the state, piling voters into rented vans and shuttling them to polling places. "These nineteen polling places had lines for hours," Trippi remembers. Kennedy won Arizona by ten points.

<snip>

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=vjU2c%2F9Cm7DkklrYS3mg3i%3D%3D