There have long been rumors flying around about the Ox campaign’s intimidation tactics with both insurance agents and bloggers. Recently, both Jenny Hodges and myself have come forward with testimonies of this.
Now, it seems that Gabe Winslow and Jeff Breedlove – Ox’s blogger relations guy and Chief Strategist, respectively, actively worked to intimidate Kyle Constable, a 15 year old kid, yesterday regarding his initial reporting of the fact that youcanstopobama.com was a blatant bait and switch scam to build Ox’s database – a report that I picked up later in the day and ran with myself, knowing that they know better than to try to intimidate me, as it has already proven unsuccessful in the past.
In Kyle’s own words,
Let me summarize this for you. These two members of the Oxendine campaign, Jeff Breedlove and Gabe Winslow bullied me into changing my story and they still expect me to support Oxendine for Governor.
You can read the details for yourself on Kyle’s site, but basically he was asked by Gabe to call the campaign, and he did. At that point, Gabe and Breedlove essentially ganged up on him and ordered him to paint the youcanstopobama.com website in a positive light. When he asked questions about what would happen with the data gathered, they dodged them and never gave him a straight answer.
One last quote from Kyle: “One of them even said that when I saw that on the site people would be getting Oxendine emails I should have just moved on with my life and not said anything.”
Silencing critics?
Is this REALLY something we want to see in the Governor’s Mansion?
[UPDATE BY TOM - 8/7/09 @ 10:00 AM] Apparently, Kyle got another call from Jeff Breedlove trying to lay down the guilt trip because their conversation was supposed to be “off the record”. Unfortunately for them, Kyle felt it more important to pass along his account of being intimidated. Breedlove did finally apologize for some of what he said to Kyle, but he still seemed to be trying to get Kyle to feel bad about posting what was supposedly an off the record conversation.
As I said on Kyle’s blog, I don’t condone posting off the record comments, but I can certainly understand why he did and don’t condemn him for it either.
So, we have three different people who have had Ox’s campaign try to intimidate them, huh?
Maybe I need to start writing about Ox. I’d LOVE for them to try that crap with me.
ox took $120,000 from insurance companies in alabama so what else do we need to know?
But to many people, that’s nothing major. However, I want to see how in the hell anyone justifies bullying a 15 year old kid. Come on folks, let’s hear it?
As some one familiar with the situation, Kyle misrepresented what happened. Not to mention, who goes on the record with off the record material.
That does seem funny since it matches up with other accounts of Oxendine’s campaign intimidating folks, including Jeff from this blog. Sorry, but I’m going to believe Kyle on this one.
I haven’t read Kyle’s entire blog, so I could be putting my foot in my mouth, but in all fairness I have to say that I didn’t know he was a teenager until I looked him up on Facebook a few days ago. He certainly doesn’t represent himself as one. Is it possible that Winslow and Breedlove didn’t know either?
Jim, they did. During the conversation my age was discussed so they obviously knew that I’m 15 years old.
.-= Kyle Constable´s last blog ..I Won’t Be Silent About the Oxendine Campaign =-.
The Georgia Teen Republicans strongly condemns Treasurer Kyle Constable’s actions regarding his post about Commissioner John Oxendine. Kyle stepped over the line by personally attacking a respected state-wide Republican official, as well as violated his word by going public with an off the record phone call.
Actions are being taken by the Executive Board to resolve this situation from the interior. The Georgia Teen Republicans encourage free speech, but all Republican Party elected officials are held to a higher standard regarding their speech than an average citizen.
Trey O’Callaghan
State Chairman
Georgia Teen Republicans
I guess it’s just a shame that the Georgia Teen Republicans won’t condemn the actions of two political operatives who have harassed other bloggers as well, but instead want to focus on the kid who wouldn’t be a door mat for Ox’s folks.
May I just say that I am so impressed with a high school student being so involved in policy and politics. If I were your age, I would be playing Madden and NBA Live on Playstation all summer.
.-= slyram´s last blog ..Congress, Town Hall Protests and Norman Rockwell =-.
Kyle, politics can be dirty. You do not want to become one of them! At any point during the conversation you should have said “OK fellows I’m going back on the record.” Anything after that point would have been fair game. More likely than not, they would have continued the intimidation and you would have ended up with the same story. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. You are an amazing you man, and I hope this little boo boo was a lesson well learned.
I hope this is the end of his campaign, but I think it might just be wishful thinking.
.-= Dustin´s last blog ..Our Health Care Rock and Hard Place =-.
Kyle, sounds like you need to join the Libertarian Party!
When you operate ethically, you don’t need to worry about whether something is on or off the record. 
[...] story has already been covered fairly extensively, and on this site alone you can find articles here and [...]
[...] on free speech and property rights – not to mention the fact that he allows his campaign to bully 15 year old kids – it is fairly obvious why he is struggling so [...]