SWGA Politics

[UPDATED]Casey Cagle, ‘Monica Lewinksy’, and John Oxendine

Going into this post, let me note that what I am about to say is things I have known since April. Indeed, I knew them before Casey Cagle dropped out of the GAGOV race – when I was FAR more unknown than I am now. At the time, several of us bloggers had a conversation about whether to run with the things you’ve been hearing about Cagle so far this week on PeachPundit and GriftDrift’s sites, among others. We didn’t have any concrete proof, so we decided to hold off at the time.

Then the Richardson firestorm started, and Erick decided to run with it.

So here is what I suspected and was told then:

The real reason Cagle dropped out was NOT because of the spinal problems – that was political smokescreen, and virtually every political blogger in the state knew it. The real reason was the ‘Monica Lewinsky’ issue Erick discussed in his ‘nuclear bomb’ this morning.

What I was told weeks earlier from a non-political source was that John Oxendine had told this source of Cagle’s issues – which is how I first learned of Cagle’s issues. When Cagle withdrew, speculation swirled about that Oxendine had let it be known that he knew what had happened, and that he was going to use it at a time of his choosing to destroy Cagle.

Cagle thus made the decision to withdraw, yet another victim of Ox’s thuggish actions – though admittedly, this one was a very smart political move.

So per this source, even before ‘John Oxendine and Liberty, Part 1‘, when Jeff Breedlove, Ox’s chief strategist, ignited my war with him by threatening ME, he had already threatened the Lt Governor of Georgia, and the Lt Gov had caved.

Of course, since today seems to be the day for tossing bombs that we believe to be true but can’t necessarily prove yet, here’s mine:

I’ve heard completely off the record rumors from multiple anonymous sources across the State I personally deem to be credible for as long as I’ve heard the rumors about Cagle, that John Oxendine has been implying to insurance agents that he would use his powers as Commissioner of Insurance to raise their rates – thus costing them business and potentially forcing them out of business – if they did not contribute to his GAGOV campaign.

Per these sources, this is a tactic he has used for YEARS in his Insurance Commissioner races as well. These sources have also told me reports of Oxendine using his official email lists as Commissioner of Insurance to send campaign fundraising emails to people who have never signed up for any of his campaign email lists – even the fake ‘youcanstopobama’ site that was the center of ‘Constable-gate‘. This is in addition to allegations I’ve heard for quite a while on PeachPundit and other sites that he is campaigning while officially on the clock as Insurance Commissioner.

The above is STRICTLY rumor, but like I said, I’ve heard it from multiple sources all across the state with EXTREMELY little variance – and no one willing to come forward on the record and verify it. Given Ox’s thuggish actions with a blogger who was literally barely getting 100 views a day at the time, a wife and mother who is the campaign manager of a competitor, and a 15 yo high school sophomore who was actually one of his biggest SWGA supporters at the time, however, it only makes sense to me that he would continue these actions with people he could potentially truly harm – those he regulates in his current job.

I leave the accuracy of these rumors for the professional media to investigate and ultimately the voters themselves to decide, but as I’ve said repeatedly, I’ve heard these same rumors from multiple sources literally across the State for several months now with EXTREMELY little variance, and I personally believe them to be true – though it is certainly possible my own experience with Ox’s thugs is clouding my vision.

[UPDATE] Again, let me stress that I am not accusing anyone of anything here. I am SIMPLY reporting RUMORS which I personally believe to be true, but may not be. I believe the people who told me these things to be credible, and since this appears to be the week for writing about things you cannot prove but have every reason to believe, I decided to write about this. Again: I am not accusing anyone of anything here, I am SIMPLY reporting the RUMORS which I was told. There are only two facts that I can claim in this entire posts as genuine facts: 1) There was a conversation in April among at least three Georgia political bloggers about whether to run the Casey Cagle story that Erick ran yesterday back then. Erick and myself were two of those bloggers. 2) Jeff Breedlove called me shortly after Ox and Liberty Part 1 came out, and I took his message as a threat. That second fact in particular is one I have been public about for several months now. Everything beyond those two points is nothing more than speculation and rumor.

Their accuracy is, ultimately, left up to the true professional investigative journalists who get paid to look into these things and, ultimately, the voting public.