Is Rich Tarrant a particularly sketchy candidate or is he demonstrating the new rule of republican politics (play dirty on the net)? First, his campaign staff set up an anonymous obstensibly independent blog
vermontsenaterace.com(Tarrant kept his official blog on his campaign website) that was accusing Bernie of restricting free speech on his
blog
Excellent history of the exposure here
Now the latest internet shenanigans: Tarrant's campaign is accusing the Sanders campaign of buying the domain name Tarrantsucks.com and having it divert traffic to bernie.org
Tarrant press release below from his (official)blog
below.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stop the dirty tricks!
Unfortunately, the dirty tricks have begun. Here's a press release we had to send out today:
TARRANT CAMPAIGN TO SANDERS:
REMOVE TARRANTSUCKS.COM
The Tarrant for Senate Campaign today asked the Sanders Campaign to remove the domain name tarrantsucks.com which sole purpose is to be redirected to the Sanders main campaign website, Bernie.org.
It's unfortunate that the Sanders campaign has stooped to petty tactics. The use of such derogatory language has no place in Vermont and, frankly, it's immature. We hope the Sanders campaign will remove the link immediately, said Tarrant campaign manager, Tim Lennon.
"I guess when you have no record to run on you have to resort to silly stunts and photo ops," Lennon said.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How's that for rubbish? The accusation that Bernie Sanders bought "tarrantsucks.com" and is using it to gain traffic to his website does not pass any kind of smell test and I'm amazed that they dared float such a bizarre accusation. It's early May and theyve already pulled two underhanded stunts on the web. How did they discover this "tarrantsucks.com"? Do they sit around the campaign office typing in "tarrantblows.com" "tarrantbites.com"? Aha found it! Bernie must have put this up!!
Bernie's letter responding to all of this idiocy is here. As always, he's direct and dignified. The letter also alluded to hay Tarrant's been making about Sanders's wife volunteer efforts for his campaign. Sure the Tarrant campaign has pulled plenty of other weirdness, like protesting Al Franken's visit to Burlington because he "stands for partisan hatred." But I'd like to stay focused on the internet accusations
So how typical is Tarrant's campaign? Any other stories of republican sketchiness on the web? Both Tarrant's efforts have fallen flat on their face here. Does this stuff work anywhere? How best do candidates on the receiving end of these shenanigans respond?