I discovered Dick Wadhams today while browsing the news about the Virginia Senate 2006 election. This is what I browsed using google:
Christ Graham of the Augusta Free Press reported in
http://www.augustafreepress.com/...
A New York Times article published over the weekend asserted that George Allen is "bored" with life in the United States Senate.
Democratic Party Senate primary candidate Harris Miller seized on the assertion on Monday - calling on Allen to resign his seat so that he could focus on more exciting things, like his run for the 2008 Republican Party presidential nomination.
"George Allen said he was bored with being Virginia senator. He said it was quote-unquote 'too slow for him.' I'm here to tell you that this is totally unacceptable. Virginia deserves a senator who is 100 percent committed to working for us in Washington - and if George Allen is bored with that job, then he should get out of the way," Miller told reporters oan a conference call Monday afternoon.
Miller's opponent in the upcoming June Senate primary, James Webb, put his two cents worth in on the issue - through an intermediary. Webb campaign spokesperson Kristian Denny Todd told The Augusta Free Press on Monday that if the senator "is bored with his job, then we think he should find a new one."
"As far as a resignation, that's why we have elections," Denny Todd said. "I doubt Virginians will be satisfied with a part-time senator."
The Allen Campaign reaction was provided by Dick Wadhams:
"This is just an attempt by Harris Miller to get some attention put on a campaign that nobody is paying attention to," Wadhams said.
That seemed like a shrewd response to me and so I wondered who Wadhams was. He did not mention boredom or Jim Webb or a presidential campaign or anything. He gave a boring response that keeps any light off the Virginia Senate election and Jim Webb which is an exciting race. I found Wadhams is well known and called the 'giant killer' and 'killer dog' and likes being a lightening rod for his candidate. The candidate can remain mild-mannered while Dick makes attacks.
Alexander Starr in the June 10, 2005 slate online says Dick Wadhams is Karl Rove's heir apparent. http://www.slate.com/...
Find Articles http://www.findarticles.com/...
has a brief biography of Dick Wadhams and some cute quotes from 2004 by him:
Biggest Gripes
"The news media folks who declare every two years how such an unprecedented negative campaign is happening and who embrace the naive notion that campaign finance 'reform' has made the political process better."
Predictions
"Unlike so many second presidential terms, President George Bush will have a very successful second term where his actions in Iraq and his war on terrorism will be vindicated, setting the stage for another winning Republican presidential campaign in 2008."
A little diary with links about the Thune/Daschle upset is at:
http://southdakotapolitics.blogs.com/...
It appears to me that Dick Wadhams uses a lot of 3rd persons in elections to attack the opponent and to provide memorable good quotes about his candidate. Imagine the difference between if I make an assertion and Kos were to make the same assertion. Only the people reading this diary will see the assertion and perhaps challenge it while an assertion by Kos is open to wide examination and perhaps refutation.
ahhh sourcewatch:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/...
has several useful links including that Wadhams had no qualms about using the JonBenet Ramsey case for political hay.
there were 28,300 google results for "dick wadhams" the above was a few. Searching Richard Wadhams gave interesting quotes from Dick from December 2005 in a new york sun article.
http://www.nysun.com/...
"It's a good thing the election isn't today," the chief of staff to Senator Allen of Virginia, Richard Wadhams, said during a panel discussion with Republican campaign consultants. "I'm glad that last year's election wasn't in this environment."
Mr. Wadhams said he expected concern about illegal immigration to be the "no. 1" issue in 2006, especially among Republican stalwarts. Mr. Bush launched a new immigration initiative this week aimed at tightening border controls while expanding the ability of immigrants to work legally in America.
Sure, forget about the War on Terrorism and Iraq and healthcare and the Debt. This Wadhams guy is good.
The freerepublic.com site posts a new york times article:
"He's not the president, but he's a close second," said Richard Wadhams, campaign manager for Senator Wayne Allard, a Colorado Republican for whom Mr. Cheney raised $400,000 at a dinner in Denver in April. "With national security rising in prominence in terms of what people care about, Vice President Cheney is a very hot commodity."
Indeed, Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, did not figure to face a tough re-election this year, but just to make sure, he wanted to build a war chest large enough to scare away any serious Democratic contenders. Mr. Cheney raised $350,0000 in March for Mr. Warner, and the challenge disappeared.
I guess we can expect tick-tock Cheney to cross the Potomac to shake some dollars loose for Allen in Virginia.
Stygius expands the slate exposition and warns Democrats to stop being blindsided by Wadhams and swift boats type folks.
http://stygius.typepad.com/...
South Dakota Republicans had long accused the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, the state's most influential paper, of being pro-Daschle. When two bloggers, Jason Van Beek and Jon Lauck, began cataloguing alleged acts of bias like lack of criticism of Linda Daschle's lobbying practice, Wadhams hired them as campaign researchers. Wadhams insists he wasn't underwriting the bloggers' online enterprises. But Van Beek and Lauck didn't disclose that the Thune campaign was cutting them checks.
So Wadhams knows how to use the internet also. The plot thickens.
Oops it is late, and I need to figure out to put the quotes in quote boxes and format this notepad written diary and which tags to put.