In searching for something to write about last night, one of my Twitter friends, terraM, suggested I check out Georgia Political Digest, and its ‘Latest Political News’ page did, in fact, have something that caught my eye.
Per the AJC’s Cameron McWhirter and Aaron Gould Sheinin, professional spies – aka ‘opposition researchers’ – are becoming quite common in national politics, and two GAGOV candidates have hired such people. The two? John Oxendine and David Poythress.
In other words, the guy who has the reputation as having hired thugs working his campaign and the former Air Force Judge Advocate General/ Adjutant General of the Georgia National Guard are thus far the only two GAGOV candidates with hired spies on their payroll.
Poythress’ campaign manager, Wendy Davis, has said that “It’s all about the public record and making sure we know the full landscape.” Here’s a tip, Ms. Davis: it doesn’t take professional spies to get access to things in the public sphere. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t even take much money – basically just the money required for any copies made, per Freedom of Information Act requests. All it requires is a team of dedicated volunteers guided by some decently knowledgeable person in the campaign – say the Campaign Manager, for example.
The spies Ox hired apparently do background checks, surveillance, and aerial surveillance. So a Governor candidate – who does not have ANY legal spying authority, such as law enforcement – wants to place private citizens under surveillance? And he wants us to trust him that once he is Governor, he won’t do this to even more private citizens without any kind of even suspicion of having committed a crime? Ox’s campaign manager, Tim Echols, told the AJC that these surveillance experts were hired to simply perform a background check on the Ox himself. However, the Ox has a record of intimidating phone calls to bloggers – yours truly in particular -, harassing private property owners he disagrees with, and demanding that a person in another campaign be fired for calling him names – all within the past few months, not to mention all the rumors of intimidating tactics he has used throughout his years as Insurance Commissioner. (And those are ONLY rumors at this time, I have no proof of that and no one yet willing to go on the record with their experience, mostly due to fear of reprisal from the Ox. In fact, I’ve talked to SEVERAL people across the State in the Insurance industry, and while most have heard of or experienced these tactics, the reason cited for their desire to remain deep background is almost universally ‘fear of reprisal from the Ox’.)
Nathan Deal’s campaign has already said they have ‘no plans’ to hire these ‘opposition researcher’ spies and that “some people want to act like adults”. Note here that he did not absolutely rule out using them, only that he currently doesn’t plan to. Similarly, Karen Handel and Eric Johnson have both said they haven’t hired such spies, and I will be emailing the other candidates just after I finish writing this post to ask them about this issue.
Finally, here is both the most disturbing and the saddest statement in the entire article:
Sean Richey, a political science professor at Georgia State University, said campaigns that don’t hire oppo researchers do so at their own peril. Even so, Richey questioned what the practice has done to the democratic process.
With oppo researchers hoarding mudballs to chuck at candidates, many good people with mistakes in their past, even minor ones, may choose not to enter politics.
“It’s good for the candidates,” he said. “But it’s bad for democracy.”
Emphasis mine, and I absolutely agree with the bolded statement.
“It’s good for the candidates,” he said. “But it’s bad for democracy.”
100% correct. I’ve known a lot of good people who would make great officials, but who won’t run because of mistakes in their past. They don’t want to embarrass their families with indiscretions of the past that have no bearing on their ability to do the job.
As if “My lawyer can kick your lawyer’s ass” weren’t bad enough… So now we’re told that hiring spies is an essential tactic in a sucessful campaign?
Looks like Chicago-style politics is alive and well in Georgia.
If you’re naive enough to think this is news then you need to get out of the political punditry business. The key word here is hired professionals. Every campaign has professional opposition researchers doing the very things you describe. Most of it just does not get paid. It could be lawyer friends and retired cops hired as private security. The only campaigns that don’t are probably the Libertarians who don’t stand a chance of winning with or without it.
CC:
Obviously, the AJC thought it was news, and since they’re arguably the biggest media entity in the State, I figured what the heck. Plus, I do my best to point out EVERYTHING that just doesn’t sit right with me, regardless of whether ‘it happens all the time’ or not. Just because something happens a lot does NOT make it right.
Just because it happens all the time doesn’t make it right, it just makes it common.
There’s a lot of things that, once upon a time, happend all the time that are thankfully gone because they were at best misguided, but in many instances just plain evil.
Just because the AJC thinks its news doesn’t make it news. They win by default as the only daily print media in the biggest city in the state. As unstable as the organization is now, they’re grasping at anything to buy them some time before they go the way of the Rocky Mtn News and Seattle P-I.
Geeze,
Well, we’re all quite miffed over here at the secret underground Libertarian Command Center (LCC) at the inference that the only viable third party in Georgia has no spies…er, opposition researchers. We have hordes of them and we’re constantly turning away volunteers everyday. Granted, most of them only want to work on the looming Martian/Jupertarian invasions or investigate the rumblings from Neu Schwabenland or the lunar UFO bases, but hey, free research is free research.
Rest assured that pound for pound, dollar for dollar, the LP in Georgia is as well informed on the political undercurrents drifting through the state as the Republicans and Democrats. Maybe better because all sorts of people tell us all sorts of things, besides the typical “What are you doing running a candidate against him for? He’s a good guy! You should run a candidate against this other guy because he is a real rat bastard and let me tell you how I know…..”
And so opposition research Libertarian style goes on. Mostly unsolicited, thoroughly enjoyed and not even considered for political purposes. We currently have other fish to fry, like getting rid of Georgia’s 1943 Jim Crow Ballot Access Laws.
Once we get that obstacle reduced and can field candidates in the 140 or uncontested state races here in Georgia, I imagine that Libertarians will look into opposition research as currently
practiced and see what we can see.
TANSTAAFL:
If *I* hear about any of these spies being employed by LP-Ga or one of our candidates, I will be the FIRST to blast them on this site.
I’m not opposed to candidates/staffers/supporters talking to people and digging through public records in any way. In fact, that is what Tom and I do quite a bit of here on this very site.
What I am opposed to is the hiring of these mercenary spies to perform police-style surveillance on private citizens and to dig through their trash or other private documents to get any ‘dirt’ on them.
If it can be proven by public testimony or public documents, EXCELLENT. If you have to place someone under surveillance or try to uncover their private documents, you’ve stooped too low.