The Opposition Research Training Blog

Bob McDonnell Going After Felon Vote For Republicans

Several Virginia papers and the Washington Post are running an AP story about Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell setting a faster pace in restoring the right to vote to non-violent felons in the Commonwealth than his predecessor Tim Kaine. The Post story is titled “Law-and-order Gov. Bob McDonnell sets record pace for restoring civil rights of former felons.” I am not sure what “former felons” means but I was shocked by what I learned in the article.

AP writes “McDonnell took office in 2010 and, with little fanfare, charged his administration with accelerating the process, vetting applicants through the secretary of the commonwealth, Janet Vestal Kelly, and his legal counsel, then providing applicants a response within 60 days.” It is almost unbelievable that convicted felons can get an answer from the Governor in 60 days.  Law abiding citizens of the Commonwealth appear to have taken a back seat to McDonnell’s “Restore the Vote, No Felon Left Behind” program.

The Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) has responsibility for creating and updating regulations governing the criminal justice system in Virginia. A system that includes at least 41,000 private security registrants, including security officers, K-9 handlers, private investigators, and locksmiths, who make their living protecting the private sector in Virginia. On December 22, 2010 DCJS submitted a “Comprehensive Revision - Regulations Relating to Private Security Services” to the Governor’s office for approval. The regulations have sat in the Governor’s office for 1 year 4 months and 16 days or 502 days total.

These regulations have a real impact of small business and the jobs of law abiding citizens. It is a shame McDonnell values the votes of convicted felons over the hard working people of Virginia.

Fugitive and Major Cuccinelli Donor Apprehended

U.S. Marshals arrested the fugitive known as Bobby Thompson Monday night in Portland Oregon. Thompson had been wanted on charges in Ohio where he was accused of masterminding a scheme to steal money collected by a scam charity known as the U.S. Navy Veterans Association. Authorities believe Thompson and a female accomplice bilked unsuspecting donors out of more than a $100 million in 41 states.

In 2009 the Virginia Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA) barred Thompson’s phony association from soliciting for donations because it had failed to register as a charity and to make the required financial disclosures. Starting in 2009 Thompson made over $67,000 in donations to Virginia politicians with the bulk of it, $55,500, going to the campaign of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Making him Cuccinelli’s second-largest individual donor. He also gave $5,000 to the McDonnell campaign, and $7,000 was divided among the campaign committees of four key Virginia lawmakers.

Thompson engaged the services of Washington, DC based attorney Samuel F. Wright to help get legislation passed in Virginia that would exempt veterans organization from having to comply with financial disclosure regulations. Once passed, Thompson would be free to fleece the citizens of the Commonwealth with little or no oversight.

Thompson made a $1,000 donation to Senator Patricia Ticer(D) the then chair of a State Senate Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources with oversight of the Virginia Office of Consumer Affairs. In 2010 Ticer sponsored SB 563 which added veterans organizations to the list of groups exempt from filing financial statements with the OCA. Reportedly Ticer tried to get the governor to veto her legislation after she learned the St. Petersburg Times had done an investigative piece exposing Thompson and his phony veterans association. She was to late. The bill became law in April 2010 only to be reversed in the 2011 session.

In May 2010 the Roanoke Times ran a story about Thompson’s political donations and lawmakers started dumping the donations with equivalent gifts to legitimate Virginia veterans associations. Cuccinelli didn’t want to let go of his sizable contribution. A spokesman for Cuccinelli’s campaign contacted by the Roanoke Times told reporters that if Thompson was convicted, and the money donated to the campaign had in fact come from misappropriated funds, they would donate those funds to reputable veterans organizations.

By mid June Cuccinelli’s campaign had placed Thompson’s contributions in a restricted account while they attempted to clarify matters. After months of pressure from Democrats the $55,000 became to hot for Cuccinelli to hold and in late July 2010 he relented and announced he would donate the Thompson money to a worthy organization.

 

Is this How Gingrich Would Govern as President?

Sitting down for an interview with Matt Bai, chief political correspondent for New York Times Magazine, Gingrich shed some light on what happened when his senior staff quit early in the campaign.

Gingrich says now, in what may be a characteristic bit of revisionist history, that it was clear early on that he needed to break free of his highly paid and conventional consultants, and that he and his wife, Callista, actually took their much-maligned Greek vacation last June — a pleasure trip in the middle of what was supposed to be his ramp-up as a candidate — in order to provoke a confrontation with the campaign’s leadership. (Gingrich later added that he really needed to see the Greek fiscal crisis up close.) If so, it worked, because the entire senior team quit en masse when he got back.

His current staff must be wondering what crazy scenario he will cook up to get rid of them.

Lack of Opposition Research Can Tank Your Campaign

Bad or no opposition research can have a serious impact on a campaign. There can be devastating consequences from using information that is not properly vetted. In their battle against incumbents, Somerset County NJ Democrats sent out mailers highlighting the poor attendance records of republicans. Assemblyman Peter Biondi (R-Somerset) was singled out as having the worst record.

Highlighting Biondi’s record was where the whole thing came crashing down for democrats. Biondi had been battling a form of cancer known as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In an instance what seemed like a fairly reasonable point to make turned into a media nightmare. Biondi’s health issues were not publicly known but many in the state capital were aware of his condition. Responding to media inquiries after the flyers were sent out Biondi said chemotherapy treatment had weakened him.

In a situation like this if your lucky your opponent will portray you are amateurish, sloppy, and running a bare bones campaign unable to fact check. At worst, the failure to do proper opposition research will lead to accusations you were fully aware of your opponent’s cancer and chose to ignore it because you are a ruthless, cut throat, unethical campaigner willing to do whatever it takes to win.

Playing With Their Own Money

What does it mean when a candidate loans or donates their own money to their campaign? The Washington Post’s Virginia Politics column reports Republican Senate candidate Tim Donner donated $100,000 to his own campaign. Donner is in an uphill battle for the Republican nomination to replace retiring Sen. James Webb.

A candidate donating to their own campaign can mean different things and is a significant event. It can be a strategic action meant to signal opponents the candidate is a serious contender. It may also be interpreted as a desperate move to shore up a campaign losing traction. This is especially true if a candidate loans money in place of an outright donation. Loans imply an expectation of repayment and may be seen as an interim measure.

An outright donation is not without problems. Prospective donors may believe there is no reason to part with their hard earned money when the candidate is wealthy enough to pay their own way. How the donation is portrayed by the campaign can also have an impact on perception. In Donner’s case, he sent a tweet that seemed to imply he was a stronger candidate, collecting more money than other challengers: “For the 2nd straight quarter, Donner for Senate banked more money than any other challenger to Allen, totaling more than $133,000.”

I was not able to find anything on Donner’s web page about the donation. It is not likely his opponents will give him a pass on tweet. When you take out Donner’s own money, it appears donations to his campaign have trailed off dramatically.

George Allen Wants Trackers to Leave Him Alone

Well, who can blame him? When people talk about trackers Republican Senate candidate George Allen’s “Macaca” incident invariably comes up. The Washington Post is reporting that Allen’s campaign staff have turned Democratic trackers away from a number of public appearances since May.

In general, when campaigns turn trackers away from obviously public events, people wonder if the candidate has something to hide. In Allen’s case, they’re probably wondering if his people are afraid he’ll say something stupid.

Governor Bob McDonnell - All Hat & No Cattle

 

By all accounts Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell responded to a recent earthquake and hurricane admirably. Unfortunately he seems to have lost interest in the day-to-day business of governing the Commonwealth. In early 2010 the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) proposed changes to the regulations governing private security services. The proposed changes were published for comments, submitted for review to the Attorney General and Secretary of the Commonwealth, and finally sent to the Governor’s office for review. This is where the process came to a grinding halt. The proposed regulations have sat in the Governor’s office for 274 days. More than 9 months with no action at all.

Having a little trouble believing this could happen, I sent 2 e-mails to Gov. McDonnell's Chief of Staff Martin Kent, but got no reply. After two calls to the Governor’s office I received a call from his press secretary Jeff Caldwell. Mr. Caldwell called to tell me the regulations were still under review. He said he could not provide any estimate on when the review would be completed. When asked what was the average time for regulation reviews by the Governor’s office Caldwell said regulations “are reviewed as they are able to be reviewed” and “there’s no timeframe or deadline.” Caldwell said he did not know the longest time regulations have been in the Governor’s office for review. Asked if it could be years he said “I don’t know if we have any data to track that, I don’t have that information.”

Changes to business regulations can have a big impact on the livelihood of owners and employees. It is surprising Governor McDonnell and his staff have so little interest in something so important.

Politicians Refuse to Return Stanford Donations

The receiver in the Allen Stanford Ponzi case says he has asked politicians twice to return tainted donations but few have responded. Ralph S. Janvey, the court appointed receiver, said that as of August 19th only $137,300 of the nearly 1.8 million in donations has been returned. The largest beneficiary of Allen Stanford’s generosity by far was the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Stanford and his associates gave the DSCC $950,000.

Opposition researchers need to review the list of campaigns that have not returned money to the receiver and ask why. The list can be found here.

Leave Trackers Alone - They Bite

 

People, People, People, listen to me when I say: Leave trackers alone, they bite. Trackers are a part of the game. All candidates and many special interest organizations, such as Super PACs, use them. Campaign staff need to face the fact that if their candidate is speaking in public people are going to be video taping their every word.

Now comes a cautionary tale from Ohio where staff for Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) asked a Cincinnati police officer at a Town Hall meeting to confiscate cameras from two Democratic activists. The officer took the cameras and returned them to the pair after the meeting finished. The two activists were filming at a Town Hall forum open to the public where news media was also openly filming. No attempt was made to confiscate news media cameras. As you can see from the video media picked right up on this and lost interest in what Chabot was saying for the better story of cops taking cameras. You can read more details at Cincinnati.com.

The uproar from many who feel this is a First Amendment issue will take Chabot's campaign off message for weeks. Worse yet, the cop who mistakenly thought he should take orders from campaign staff, will probably face an internal affairs probe to learn why he felt it was ok to confiscate personal property from law abiding citizens taking pictures at a public event. God forbid the officer is suspended, demoted or fired over the incident. The Chabot campaign will never hear the end of it. And rightfully so.

I know the holy grail of tracking is a "Macaca" like incident, but this has to be the next best thing.

 

Report: Gray Administration Violated Nepotism Laws

In a report released Tuesday, a special council committee headed by Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh concluded that the actions of three of Gray's closest aides badly damaged the city's image.

via washingtonexaminer.com

Washington Examiner reporter Freeman Klopott takes a look at the DC Council report on the Gray administration's early hiring practices. The committee found evidence supporting Sulaimon Brown's allegations he was paid by the Gray Campaign to stay in the race and bad mouth Mayor Fenty.