Remember, oh, about three pre-Foley weeks ago, when
Charlie Bass' #2 guy, policy director Tad Furtado, resigned after it was discovered that he had been visiting my local blog,
The Yankee Doodler and sock-puppeting
Blue Granite,
NH-02 Progressive, and
Swing State Project? An important detail of that story is that he was not only posting concern troll comments to dissuade voters, but also that our blogs turned up in Google searches he was doing in what looked clearly like
campaign-related opposition research:
(Go below the fold for a surprise...)
The bloggers said they also could see opposition research done on Hodes by the same computer user, under searches such as "Hodes and gay marriage" and "Hodes and taxes."
..."I think the resignation certainly was appropriate. I don't think it answers the real questions here, particularly considering that this is the No. 2 staffer in Bass's office and we know that, above and beyond leading posts on the congressman's website, they were doing opposition research on Paul from their congressional office with taxpayer money," he [Reid Cherlin, Hodes' spokesman] said.
Well, imagine my surprise to see this on my sitemeter (click on the image to enlarge):
That's right. Someone from the House of Representatives came to my little ol' local blog from a Google search of "Hodes" and "top 1%" (a reference to the tax cuts? polls?). Here's another partial screen grab of the referring link page (click on image to enlarge):
Now, there's no way I can prove that this is coming from Bass' House office, but let's play process of elimination.
* Is Paul Hodes or anyone in his campaign in the House of Representatives? No. Check.
* Is our other NH Congressman a Democrat, and thus interested in helping out Paul Hodes? No. Check.
* Could it be Rahm Emanuel's DCCC team? Nope. On rare occasions they've visited, but under the DCCC ISP. Check.
* Could it be the big gun Dems who have come to visit recently to help Hodes? Nope. Kerry and Biden are Senators. Check.
* Has Bass' DC office done this before? Yup. Check.
I'll go a step further: if you are the person from the House of Representatives, and you are not in Bass' office, please leave an explanation in the comments, or email me at the_yankee_doodler at yahoo dot com and I will gladly delete this.
Like I said, I can't prove it, but it sure seems to me that it's Bass' office using tax-payer funded House resources to do opposition research to assist his sinking campaign, despite being caught red-handed once before.
And while we're on the subject, it's useful to remember:
House ethics rules state that congressional staff time and equipment may not be used for campaign purposes, and that criminal and financial penalties can be assessed. The rules also say congressmen are responsible for their staff members' actions.
But I'm just an amateur blogger with a free sitemeter and an internet connection. Is there an enterprising member of the media out there who can finish this story?
(Crossposted at The Yankee Doodler)