The New York Times
Tuesday 01 January 2008
In New Hampshire's hotly contested 2002 Senate race, Democratic get-out-the-vote phone banks were jammed with incoming calls on Election Day. The Republican John Sununu, won re-election by under 20,000 votes, and Allen Raymond, a Republican Party operative, went to jail for his role in the jamming.
Mr. Raymond has now written a book about his experiences, "How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative." In it, he paints a picture of the corruption of modern politics that should leave no doubt about the creativity and cynicism of operatives like Mr. Raymond or the need for tough new election-reform legislation.
Mr. Raymond, whose great-grandfather founded the Underwood Typewriter Company, was a privileged kid drawn to politics at a young age. He moved from small campaigns to larger ones, eventually working for the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
It was a world in which, he claims, dirty tricks were the norm. When Mr. Raymond opened a political telemarketing firm, he was hired by a Republican challenging a New Jersey Democratic congressman. Mr. Raymond's company - in a plan he says he hatched with the challenger's advisers - called liberal Democrats and urged them to vote for the Green Party candidate.
Those same advisers, he says, gave Mr. Raymond another assignment: to call white households asking them to vote for the Democrat, using the voice of, as he puts it, a "ghetto black guy." He also called union households, using voices with thick Spanish accents.
No one is suggesting that Mr. Sununu knew anything about the phone jamming. Mr. Raymond says his instructions came from James Tobin, the northeast regional director of the Republican National Committee. And he says a top official of the New Hampshire Republican Party provided the phone numbers of the Democratic get-out-the-vote banks. Mr. Raymond jammed the lines - placing hundreds of hang-up calls an hour - to five Democratic offices across the state and a phone bank run by volunteer firefighters.
Mr. Raymond pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit phone harassment and was sentenced to five months in prison. Mr. Tobin argued in court that the idea to jam the phones was not his and that he committed no crime. A federal appeals court in Boston reversed his conviction, saying that the law he was found guilty under was not "a close fit for what he did." The Republican Party has paid a high-priced law firm in Washington to defend Mr. Tobin, according to The Associated Press, and Mr. Raymond suspects it is because Republican bigwigs "wanted him to keep his yap shut" about the origins of the scheme.
Mr. Raymond doesn't offer proof in the book and is clearly bitter about his former employers not coming to his defense. The Republicans, he says, "not only threw me under the bus but then blamed me for getting run over."
Of course, this tradition of dirty trickery goes back decades. Donald Segretti, an operative with President Richard Nixon's re-election committee went to jail for distributing devious, and illegal, campaign literature. Today there are many others plying the trade - for both parties.
In 2006, Republicans in upstate New York accused Democrats of calling voters at the last minute and directing them to incorrect polling places. At the same time, Democrats in several Congressional districts charged that Republicans unleashed robo-calls - calls that repeated over and over, enraging the recipients - that were made to sound as if they were coming from the Democratic candidate.
Such excesses are often dismissed as the work of a few overeager campaign staff members. Mr. Raymond argues, however, that illegal tactics are often standard operating procedure. "In my business," he writes, "communications devices were all lethal weapons - and every fight was dirty."
It is remarkable how little Congress has done to stop all this. A good bill that addresses some of the problems - the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, sponsored by Barack Obama, Charles Schumer and others - has been limping along, though there is hope it could come to a Senate vote this month. Mr. Raymond is the rare case of a political operative who actually did jail time for dirty tricks. Congress needs to toughen the laws protecting elections, and make clear that anyone interfering with democracy will pay a stiff price.
Voters Report Push-Polling in Iowa
By David Espo
The Associated Press
Monday 31 December 2007
Des Moines, Iowa - In the final days of a close campaign, likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa report receiving phone calls providing unflattering information about all three of the party's major presidential hopefuls.
Some of the calls say Sen. Barack Obama's health plan leaves millions uninsured, while others say John Edwards' plans for a troop withdrawal from Iraq is dangerous or that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton cannot defeat Republicans in the fall, according to recipients.
In each case, the recipients say a caller pretending to conduct a poll of candidate preferences begins by asking who the caucus-goer intends to support.
"I responded Obama, and she went on to ask if I knew Obama's health care plan left 15 million uninsured," said Pam Jochum, an Iowa state representative from Dubuque.
Jochum said the caller "went into an attack on John Edwards, stating to me that military experts said Edwards' plan to withdraw troops within 10 months could destabilize" Iraq.
The use of anonymous phone calls to spread derogatory information about candidates is a frequent occurrence, particularly in the final days of a campaign. It is often difficult or even impossible to determine the group behind the effort, since they do not readily identify themselves.
Lisa Lovig, an Obama supporter, said she had received similar calls recently from a professed pollster. "It seems like every call I've gotten has been about at least two candidates," she said in a telephone interview. Besides being provided unflattering information about Obama and Edwards, she said her caller described Clinton as "not very electable in a general election."
Mary Krohnke, who said she is trying to decide between Obama and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, said her caller read her lengthy quotations from newspaper stories. One involved Obama's health care plan and allegations that it would not cover everyone. A second contained information about Obama and his position on nuclear reactors in his home state of Illinois, she said. A third concerned Edwards and Iraq.
Michael Hancock of Coralville said he had received an automated call in the last 24 hours asking whether he planned to attend a caucus. When he indicated he was, "The next question was whether I planned to watch the BCS-Orange Bowl," a college football game scheduled to be played in Florida on caucus night.
Hancock said he hung up the phone, then said he concluded it was a "transparent attempt to depress turnout from some people."
Josh Earnest, a spokesman for Obama, criticized the calls.
"Negative campaign tactics like push polls don't reflect the values that are at the core of the Democratic Party and the Iowa caucuses," he said.
An aide to Edwards, Dan Leistikow, denounced what he said were "underhanded, despicable" political attacks.
Clinton's campaign had no immediate reaction.
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Associated Press Writer Ron Fournier contributed to this report.
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