Roger Stone is a prankster, one of Richard Nixon's original tricksters. Roger Stone is also a grand-stander and every now and then manages to burnish his image by making an outlandish appearance. He prides himself on having attended all Republican National conventions since 1964. In between times he now publishes a blog, theStoneZone, where he opines and occasionally makes news.
Stone's latest effort to make some waves involves the Brothers Koch and the role they played in getting Willard Romney to choose as his Vice the brother of a Bain & Company protege, Tobin Ryan, just as Willard himself once was. So, if the Brothers Koch had to sweeten the deal to get Paul Ryan on the ticked with a promise of more bucks, it might just have been a replay of the false reluctance Willard first displayed when Mr. Bain tempted him to go out on his own, as recorded in the profile in Vanity Fair. Playing hard to get may just be a Willard trick.
Blaming everything on the Koch Brothers is, to be frank, getting a little stale. Besides that, given their press management operation, if they get noticed in the media, I think we can be pretty sure that was their intention.
So, Chuck Todd's tweeting that Americans For Prosperity is pulling out of Pennsylvania should be taken with a big grain of salt, especially since Tom Smith, the former coal mine owner challenging Senator Bob Casey has been getting lots of dollars for his campaign. The relatively unknown Tea Party recruiter, who had been pretending to be a Democrat in order to take over the county executive committee in Armstrong County, much as the religious right took over the Republican party in Florida in the 1980s, seems rather well connected for a farm boy from Kittanning. That he got his name in the national press with another "gaffe" about the nature or rape was likely not inadvertent.
Roger Stone may have some inside information about what the Koch Brothers are up to, as he claimed in an August 17 post on his blog. Cliff Weathers, writing for the NY AltNews thinks he's credible. I'd say that, given the Kochs' personal fortunes a hundred million dollars is chicken feed.
But, if Roger Stone is just trying to get some attention for his opining, that makes sense. He's obviously not impressed with what's being highlighted in Tampa, in what is now conveniently his home state.
He was still mad that Ron Paul did not encourage his followers to back Johnson. "I find it interesting," he said, "Ron Paul, who himself ran as a libertarian candidate in 1988, who only four years ago endorsed the Constitution candidate over John McCain, now says the liberty movement must stay within the Republican party. Why? For his idiot son? That makes no sense. To keep Rand Paul's fund-raising list producing? So his son can now profiteer the way his father has? Ron Paul, the guy who talks constantly for principle, demonstrates he has none. If he did, he'd be for Gary Johnson."
Stone thinks politics has gotten a lot less interesting since those Nixon days. For one, there are "fewer and fewer" dirty tricks. While the press jumped on Romney's birther joke last week, he sees none of the subterfuge and mischief that defined the Nixonian scorched-earth politics. "They don't [even] have any clean tricks," he said of the Romney team. "I don't know how you run a one-dimensional campaign."
Which may explain why Stone made an early effort to arrogate Tea Party in the
summer of 2009, while the civic engagement they had witnessed during 2008 was still fresh in their minds. But, his effort to woo them in Springfield, Illinois obviously failed.
The Koch Brothers' Americans For Prosperity, perhaps because they had more money had more success arrogating the grass roots patriots and turning them into astro-turf. So, perhaps Stone's tattling is prompted by a bit of envy and in pointing out the Koch Ryan connection he's telling the truth.
But, he's a prankster. He delights in mischief for itself. Instead of shearing off someone's blond locks, he dyes his own.