Though campaign staff don't usually have terribly high name recognition, Romney-watchers will know the name Eric Ferhnstrom. Fehrnstrom is a long-time Romney aide, one so invaluable that, as governor of Massachusetts, Romney tried to
assure him a state pension through a dubious political appointment. More recently, he took to Twitter to defend Romney's
"corporations are people" remark. Fehrnstrom is also a top adviser to Sen. Scott Brown, and it's in that capacity that
Blue Mass Group caught him tweeting from his personal account something clearly intended for @CrazyKhazei, a Twitter account named for Democratic Senate candidate Alan Khazei and taking frequent shots at Elizabeth Warren, as well. (Fehrnstrom subsequently deleted the tweet, but not before people saved it for posterity, as seen above.)
Blue Mass Group diarist chrismatth points to how tweets from the @CrazyKhazei account line up with Brown campaign messaging. Like why Brown was the only member of the Massachusetts congressional delegation not to appear in an It Gets Better video:
Scott Brown/Eric Fehrnstrom talking point on "It Gets Better Video"
Nothing new here, just the same old "jobs, jobs, not creating any jobs" shtick:
"I promise to devote all my time in office to making gay videos. Shame on Scott Brown for focusing on jobs! #mapoli" 31 July via Web
So, yes, apparently Scott Brown, who's done fuck all to create jobs, couldn't take a few minutes to do an It Gets Better video (sorry, a "gay video") because he was too busy doing fuck all to create jobs.
Then there's the ream of tweets making the point that Elizabeth Warren has not lived in Massachusetts her entire life and Harvard Harvard Harvard:
"Elizabeth Warren? C’mon, this is Massachusetts, not Oklahoma #mapoli" 31 Jul via Web
[...]
"Not true. I saw her in Harvard Square once RT @3January2013 GOP Says Elizabeth Warren Has Basically Never Been to Massachusetts #mapoli" 22 Aug via Web
Never mind that it's a little dissonant to be simultaneously attacking someone for being from Oklahoma and for being associated with Harvard. Culturally, there's a certain distance between Oklahoma and Harvard, you know?
Also popular with Fehrnstrom and whoever else is tweeting from @CrazyKhazei are the tweets suggesting that Elizabeth Warren = Martha Coakley, like, "If you squint, she looks like Martha Coakley," because all women in their late 50s and early 60s look alike, amiright?
It's not just a Twitter account; Ben Smith reports that "the site crazykhazei.com is registered to Brown's new media consultant." The joke Twitter account taking shots at your political opponents is pretty much a standard feature of today's campaign. What's striking here is that, on Scott Brown's campaign, it's coming from the top, not from bored new media staffers in their down time. And compare the heat the Obama campaign took for floating the notion that Mitt Romney is weird with the license the Brown campaign feels to call one of their opponents "crazy."
