TTS FINDS SCAPEGOAT, TIME NOT SURPRISED TO SEE FIRM “PLAY DIRTY”

Following the revelation that Mitt Romney’s South Carolina campaign leadership - including two partners in the political consulting firm Tompkins, Thompson and Sullivan - was behind a vicious anti-Fred Thompson website, the calls for resignations are ringing loudly across the Palmetto State. But few folks are shocked that TTS would be behind such dirty tactics, including TIME’s Swampland blog.

And so, on page A3 of the Washington Post, appears my favorite political story of the day — about the role that seems to have been played by South Carolina’s feared and (in some quarters) revered GOP hitman, J. Warren Tompkins, in the creation of an anti-Fred Thompson website called PhoneyFred.org. Tompkins is serving as Mitt Romney’s top South Carolina adviser — a role he has played often in his 25-year run as the most powerful non-elected man in Palmetto State politics. It was the role Tompkins played for George W. Bush in the Bush campaign’s smackdown of John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary. For those who don’t recall, that was the state where “mysterious” pro-Bush forces waged an under-the-radar slander campaign against McCain, who had just demolished Bush in the New Hampshire primary. The Bush campaign — including Tompkins — claimed no complicity in the slander, an assertion taken at face value by exactly no one with any experience in South Carolina GOP politics.

PhoneyFred.Org disappeared from the Web shortly after the Post’s reporter, Michael Shear, began asking the Romney campaign about it. Thompson spokesman Todd Harris (a McCain 2000 veteran) called on Romney to fire Tompkins. As this SC blogger pointed out last year, Tompkins’ power in the state has been ebbing. And his role in Romney’s campaign hasn’t done anything to lift the former Massachussetts governor out of fourth place in South Carolina polls of the GOP candidates. We’ll see what happens. [JAY CARNEY - TIME]

And “that South Carolina blogger,” Sic Willie of FITSNews.com, is now reporting that Romney and TTS have canned Wesley Donehue, who leads much of the firm’s Web-based activities:

Sources are telling FITSNews that Mitt Romney’s South Carolina campaign organization has fired consultant Wesley Donehue in an effort to make him the scapegoat for yesterday’s PR disaster. Donehue has been publicly fingered by the Romney campaign as the individual responsible for creating PhoneyFred.org, a website attacking recently-announced presidential candidate Fred Thompson. Our sources tell us Romney’s $12,000-a-month lead consultant J. Warren Tompkins and S.C. Campaign Manager Terry Sullivan are telling people they had no idea Donehue was behind the website. [FITSNews]

FITSNews also had some rather eloquent words to say about yesterday’s TTS debacle.

We’re used to covering the not-so-stealth exploits of the retard brigade currently running Mitt Romney’s South Carolina campaign, but you had to figure at some point that Terry Sullivan and his not-so-merry band of knuckle-dragging mouth breathers would eventually learn how to anonymously attack somebody without getting caught. It’s not that hard, guys! Anyway, according to today’s Washington Post Blog, Sullivan and his Internet goon squad have been caught in the act once again, this time getting fingered as the creators of PhoneyFred.org, a would-be anonymous website attacking former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson.

Nice job (again), geniuses. It’s probably worth noting that the Mitt-ites, who like to whine like a bunch of toddlers anytime their candidate gets called out for one of his numerous flip-flops, have previously branded their non-anonymous detractors as “desperate campaigns” employing “desperate tactics.” So … now that the baby boot is squarely on the other foot, what was Team Flipper’s reaction? According to the Post story, “a spokesman for Romney’s campaign said he would look into questions about the anti-Thompson site.” [FITSNews]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 5:25 pm and is filed under Primary Season, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.