When the story first broke about Connecticut Democratic senatorial candidate and popular Attorney General Richard (Dick) Blumenthal's "misspeaking" about his Vietnam era service, I immediately thought of opposition research and Karl Rove. It was also reminiscent of the swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004.
A candidate's strength is turned upside down through lies, distortions and character assassination. Such a tactic distracts from the opponent's lack of experience and/or shortcomings as a candidate.
Now that Linda McMahon is the Republican candidate running against Dick Blumenthal, I wanted to see if I was right about Karl Rove's association.
As McMahon prepared to launch her U.S. Senate campaign, her initial filing did not disclose payments for political consulting work and other in-kind services performed, a fact first reported by The Day of New London's Ted Mann.
Therefore, the Federal Election Commission required her to file a
revised campaign finance report.
McMahon's filing shows what some of those consultants are earning. For instance, the Texas firm headed by Republican media consultant Scott Howell, a protege of Karl Rove, was paid more than $1.2 million.
McMahon spokesman Ed Patru points out that Howell's firm did not actually pocket the entire $1.2 million -- most of the went to TV ad buys, which the firm buys on behalf of the campaign. "It's not accurate to say he was paid all that money,'' Patru writes in an email. "Every campaign does it that way - the media guy places the ad buy."
I was on the target, but missed the bulls-eye. Who is Scott Howell?
This is what I found. In October of 2006, Max Blumenthal (no relation that I am aware) interviewed Scott Howell who is a disciple of Lee Atwater and former employee of Karl Rove.
If a political attack ad crosses boundaries of good taste, is emotionally manipulative, excessively ominous, twists facts, exploiting hot-button issues of race, sex and terror, and winds up being condemned by civil rights groups, the chances are that ad has been produced by Republican hitman Scott Howell.
Howell's distinctive messaging style has defined the tone of some of the most important campaigns of the past five years, yet the consultant who has described himself as "Little Lee Atwater," after the fabled Republican hatchet-man who was Howell's and Karl Rove's mentor, remains an enigma. Preferring the darkened editing booth to the media's glare, he has spoken to few reporters since his thirty-second spots have seeped onto the national political scene.
Throughout the course of our conversation, Howell repeatedly refused to stand by the truthfulness of his advertisements. "I'd love to belabor that with you," he told me when I asked him about the accuracy of his ads. "I just don't have the--I can't stand to talk to somebody in the media and be wrong." Unwilling to defend his ads as "truthful," Howell insisted they were "tasteful."
Howell developed his signature style by adapting the increasingly exploitative aesthetics of popular media culture to politics. "Emotion, whether it's humor, angst, whether it makes you laugh or cry, it helps people to respond," Howell told me. "We're in a sound-bite world, and you have to work to get people's attention."
Howell learned long ago that truth is often a burden to success. Fresh out of college in 1984, Howell lost a disputed election for a seat in the South Carolina state legislature. Soon after, Lee Atwater, the Palmetto State's hell-raising political consultant, who had engineered the re-election of Senator Strom Thurmond and overseen Ronald Reagan's 1984 Southern Strategy, hired him. Howell observed closely as Atwater dismantled the sterling career and reputation of 1988 Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis through a series of gruesome ads blaming Dukakis for the crimes of Willie Horton, a black murderer who escaped from a furlough program to commit a rape. With Dukakis notched on Howell's belt, Atwater recommended him to another protégé, Texas boy wonder Karl Rove, who hired him as his political consulting firm's political director. Howell opened his own consulting company in Dallas the following year, and the Democratic body count began rising.
In the 2002 mid-term elections and beyond other victims were decorated Vietnam war hero former Senator Max Cleland (lost to Saxby Chambliss), former Senate minority leader Tom Daschle (lost to John Thune) and Oklahoma Democratic senatorial candidate Brad Carson (lost to Tom Coburn); Harold Ford, Jr. (lost to Bob Corker).
Howell is comfortable conceding that his ads are emotionally manipulative and short on facts.
"I'm not nearly as callous as they try to make me," Howell said. "You know how it is: They hate me because we beat 'em. I guess you could say it's a badge of honor in my business."
Maybe they hate him because he cheats.
Who else has Linda McMahon, the self-proclaimed Washington outsider, hired to help run her campaign?
McMahon's roster of political talent also includes GOP strategist Mike Slanker's three Nevada-based companies: Autumn Productions, Autumn E-Media and November Inc. Slanker is former political director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and his past clients include President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and the Republican Governors Association.
The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call has called Slanker "clearly the most feared consultant on the Republican side."
Bob Moore runs Moore Information, an opinions research and strategic analysis firm in Oregon hired by McMahon. As executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee from 1977 to 1980, Moore helped the GOP capture control of the U.S. Senate for the first time in nearly three decades.
Strategic Direction, a Florida-based telemarketing firm used by McMahon, was co-founded by former Florida GOP head Randy Enwright, national political director for Republican Fred Thompson's 2008 presidential bid.
McMahon's campaign has also worked with 2nd Six, a California-based grass-roots marketing company, and TargetPoint consulting in Virginia.
The 2nd Six firm was founded by Mark Ross, former GOP political director for Orange County whose resume boasts he managed a 20,000-person campaign rally for Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin in 2008.
It's the same old strategy, using the same old consultants and the same old policies and talking points with a new face for a candidate. Have other candidates from other states hired them as well?
Will the 2010 mid-term election follow the same pattern as 2002? The GOP wants to win at any cost. Linda McMahon has pledged to spend up to $50 million on her campaign.
Let the voter beware!