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Fake boobs. Fake tans. Fake memoirs.
Without a doubt, those three products of pop culture are as American as artificially flavored apple pie and baseball players doped up on steroids.
And fake political volunteers? They, too, have their place in the ersatz American establishment.
Back in January, you may recall, Eugene’s Register-Guard reported on a staffer with the National Republican Senatorial Committee who used a fake name in order to snoop on the campaign of Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley, who’s running in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.
BlueOregon, predictably outraged by the Republican invasion, riffed on the scandal with a headline that screamed: “Busted! GOP tracker lies about identity, gets caught.” [Which inspired our own headline above.]
Back at the Register-Guard, a Merkley spokesman groused about the deception. “[T]here’s an honest way to do it, and there’s a dishonest way to do it,” Russ Kelley told the Eugene paper. “You find out where they are through public notices and things like that. You don’t call and misrepresent yourself … And you especially can’t do that and get caught.”
If only the Merkley campaigned had listened to its own advice.
On Friday, March 14, a young man named “Cole Stewart” showed up at Democratic opponent Steve Novick’s campaign headquarters saying he was a Reed College student who wanted to help Novick raise money.
Trouble is, Reed College officials say they have no student by the name of “Cole Stewart,” nor “Cole Stuart” for that matter.
But “Cole” looked familiar, according to Novick staffers Andrew Gorry, Henry Kraemer and Seth Moore. Soon they realized they’d seen “Cole” before – as Hayes Ingraham, a Reed graduate who is a paid Merkley staffer. [Ingraham is pictured in the above photo on the left at a Merkley event in December.]
Rather than be annoyed, the Novick campaign is bemused. “This might be the place where I beat my chest and demand apologies,” says Jake Weigler, Novick’s spokesman. “But it just seems silly.”
Merkley campaign spokesman Matt Canter confirmed Ingraham misrepresented his identity when he went to Novick’s headquarters. He said Ingraham took the action on his own initiative and has apologized to Merkley and to the Novick campaign.
“His behavior is unethical and he’s apologized,” Canter says, adding that Ingraham has been reprimanded and told he would be dismissed if it happened again (though the likelihood of it happening again seems miniscule since he’s been unmasked.)
“It was a mistake,” Canter says. “He’s 22 years old.”
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This is much worse than lying about being a tracker! This is espionage. This is about five times as bad as editing a publicly editable wikipedia page or trying to get an organization to endorse your candidate in a hurry — both Novick campaign "ethical breaches" that the Merkley campaign won’t shut up about.
Double standard much?
I tend to agree with Weigler–this is political season silliness, and the Novick people were sharp enough to catch him before harm was done–but I guess you can add "hypocritical" to the list of non-substantive ways the Merkley campaign is
trying to get any kind of traction against Steve. How’s that working out foe them?
Is he going to wear a funny moustache the next time he tries to infiltrate the campaign? Maybe a hockey mask?
I can’t believe that the Merkley campaign is going to continue to employ that liar. No, actually, I guess it makes sense.
Politicker Or http://www.politickeror.com/merkley-staffer-grabs-goods-and-goes has a much more balance version of the story, noting that Novick staffer Henry Kraemer similarly crossed similar ethical lines, both apologized, and are being retained by their respective campaigns. It seems that every campaign employs at least one 20 year old who makes mistakes.
Shame on Hayes Ingraham! That kind of unethical behavior is unacceptable. Period.
While the impetuousness of youth is a well documented fact throughout human history, that doesn’t excuse it.
Props to the Merkley campaign for promptly addressing the issue. That’s much more than the Novick campaign has ever done when caught with it’s own paid staffer’s ethical malfeasance.
I’m happy that Jake has taken the high road on this. It’s funny that someone associated with the Merkley campaign would do it though, due to the Gordon Smith tracker incident.
Kudos Jake.
And I think it’s quite funny that the WikiPedia "scandal" keeps getting brought up since Henry didn’t attempt to disguise his identity when he, horror of horrors, attempted to ADD CONTEXT to Merkley’s wiki page.
Not exactly comparing apples and apples…
"has a much more balance version of the story, noting that Novick staffer Henry Kraemer similarly crossed similar ethical lines"
uh…what’s similar about a staffer making an open, factual change to a Wiki page–and lying about who you are to get inside your opponent’s HQ?
That’s a curious sense of balance.
A Novick staffer makes an error in judgment, and the campaign downplays it. Then a Merkley staffer makes an error in judgment and the campaign, assisted by Ms. Slovick, is all over it. Ya’ gotta love politics!
Slovic covered both, local mom.
If a Novick staffer had done this there already have been four different sanctimonious blogs covering this (including you, bdunn and that blog for his clients blueoregon). Kudos to the Novick campaign for not playing in the same gutter.
Steve is tough as a bulldog on Jeff Merkley’s policies, but I’ve never heard him say a cross word about the man, and I can’t think of a single surrogate who’s been caught saying anything like that either. I’m sure they were laughing too hard at Novick HQ over the irony, to really contemplate an angry response. OH, the humanity!
While I agree it was silly and really just plain dumb, let’s not get ahead of ourselves with the Novick’s campaign taking the high road thing. After all, I’m sure it wasn’t the Merkley campaign that tipped Slovic to the story…
Is what this kid really any worse than Dan Savage’s germ-a-thon during the Bauer ‘00 campaign? Link:
http://archive.salon.com/politics2000/feature/2000/01/25/bauer/index.html
The Politicker OR article is more balanced because 1 it mentions Kraemer’s violation of Wikipedia’s conflict of interest policy when editing rival politician’s web page 2 Hayes just went and got some remits and lied about his name. Still very wrong and not ethical but big difference from Slovick’s exaggerated charges. I trust Lauren Lafaro over at Politicker OR to be more fair minded.
"2 Hayes just went and got some remits and lied about his name."
Yes, that’s all he planned to do–promote Steve and give him money. That’s EXACTLY why he gave a fake name. :rolleyes: