Buckeye Senate Blog reported last week that Sherrod Brown has done opposition research on local Ohio bloggers which lead to the firing of paid blogger and voice of the Ohio blogoshere Tim Russo of the Buckeye Politics blog, which is still offline due to this incident.
Apparently, the Brown's campaign found a record of a 2001 arrest of Russo which was, needless to say, not very flattering. BSB writes that this information was shopped around the Cleveland media markets, with the intention of intimidating or outright muzzling Russo. In early January, Russo was in the middle of an interview with the host of a local Cleveland talk radio show, when the Brown camp faxed the evidence of Russo's arrest to the station. The station informed Russo that they would ask him about the arrest in the next segment. Not wanting to discuss the matter, the blogger ended the interview. When Russo reported the arrest to his boss, who was financing the Buckeye Politics blog, he was immediately terminated from his position.
Why would Sherrod Brown go to such lengths to blackmail a blogger? Well Russo and Brown have a long history. He was intiailly a Brown supporter. However, Brown and Russo began to part ways when accusations of Sherrod's exploits in the blogosphere including the plagerism of a blog post, questionable Blog Ads
that were eventually pulled, and buying the support of bloggers, drew harsh criticism on Russo's first weblog, Democracy Guy.
The tension between Sherrod and Tim reached an apex at the Ohio Democratic Party Christmas Party, where the blogger got in to a verbal sparring match with Sherrod Brown and his wife Connie Schultz. The Brown campaign denied that the confrontation happened the way that Russo reported. They claimed that Russo was at fault, and complained that he had used profanity. Shortly thereafter, Brown's Internet guy called George Nemeth of Brewed Fresh Daily (one of the founders of Meet the Bloggers) to cancel Sherrod Brown's appearance on Meet the Bloggers, claiming Russo was biased. As a side note, Brown also avoided a public debate with Paul Hackett on Meet the Bloggers.
This leads us back to Russo's mysterious disappearance from the blogosphere after the ODP event, in Jaunary. Rumors swirled around the Ohio blogs, including one that speculated that Tim may have "lashed a beer cooler onto the tail of the Lake Erie Monster, broke the old beast, and is now riding him like an ice cutter to the Middle Bass Island." Tim finally rememerged to dispel the rumors, but offered no substantive reason for the sudden shut down of Buckeye Politics.
Since Tim does not want his past record to go public, and I won't post it here, he is not coming out with the whole story. I don't blame him. But should a candidate for US Senate be using such dirty tactics against a blogger? Who is next?
Before Hackett's withdrawl, Brown's Internet hacks were at it again. This story was published in the Cleveland Plain Dealers new weblog. Brown campaign staff then sent this out to right-wing bloggers. So now Brown is using Karl Roves's tactics and his minions?
I want to see an Ohio Democrat win the Senate seat, I really do. But we need to police our own party, and make sure this bullsh** is not happening.