Tuesday, 6 June 2006
Yarmuth Campaign Tries to Infiltrate Northup Campaign
« Fletcher's Obstacles | Main | Must Read About Confrontation Between Islam and the West. »Robert Kahne, A 19 year old volunteer for Yarmuth's congressional campaign, was busted trying to use a fake name last week in an attempt to volunteer for Northup's campaign. Fortunately, the attempt to infiltrate the campaign was spoiled when a campaign worker for Northup remembered seeing Kahne on a web site of Yarmuth supporters.
Northup's team responded forcefully to the infiltration attempt
Patrick Neely (Northup's campaign manager) faxed a letter to Yarmuth yesterday, with copies to local media, accusing the Yarmuth campaign of "attempting to embed" Kahne with Northup's campaign, adding, "This type of Nixonian dirty trick represents the very worst kind of campaign tactic, and is not worthy of a candidate for local dog catcher."
Yarmuth's campaign issued a "sorta" apology for the event
Yarmuth's campaign later issued a statement disavowing Kahne's visit to Northup's campaign headquarters and "the words he has written."
The statement said "appropriate" action had been taken. In an interview, campaign manager Dan Borsch said Yarmuth met with Kahne yesterday. "Unfortunately, we have conveyed to Robert that we can no longer accept his volunteering on our behalf," Borsch said.
On his blog, Kahne mentions that he was an intern for the campaign. Yarmuth's campaign recognized he had been paid for some of his work in the primary but did not comment on whether or not he was a intern.
What makes this story even better is that Kahne is a kook leftist who wrote in his blog May 6th
I HATE REPUBLICANS. yes. hate. I hate them. all of them. I wish we could have a liberal inquisition and do like the Spanish, where we would go up to people and say "Are you a Republican?" and then if they said yes, we would kill them. with swords of course, guns would be illegal.
In a later blog he "sorta" apologizes to people who might have taken his statement seriously. Yeah, killing Republicans sounds like joking to me. The only funny thing about his statement is that he highlights his stupidity around the gun issue by highlighting the fact that people kill people and not guns.
But back on topic. This is a serious violation by the Yarmuth campaign. I have worked in enough campaigns to know Kahne was a regular in the campaign office. If he was a regular, there is NO WAY that someone in the Yarmuth campaign team did not know or even ask him to try to infiltrate the Northup campaign. Fortunately, Northup found out about this attempt and brought the seriousness of the matter to the public.
Hopefully, it will curtail the amateurishness of the Yarmuth campaign from any more sleazy campaign tactics.
