Remember all of the outrage from the Romney campaign over the "Anti-Mormon" push polling in Iowa?
Well it turns out there's a new development. From our friends at TPM and the folks at HuffPo:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://tpmelectioncentral.com/...
(Summary and analysis on the flip.)
From the TPM article:
Deepening the mystery surrounding the anti-Mormon polling calls, the Romney campaign is confirming that it referred reporters to two recipients of the calls without disclosing that the two were also on the Romney campaign payroll, TPM Election Central has learned.
In response to questions from TPM Election Central, Romney spokesman Kevin Madden confirmed that the campaign had failed to disclose this info to reporters. Madden suggested that the campaign had identified them as "supporters," which is a far cry from being directly paid by the campaign, as the two call recipients were.
The revelation could add grist to the theory -- now spreading on conservative blogs and even getting coverage by news organizations -- that the Romney campaign itself is behind the calls. Some have speculated that the calls -- which attack Romney and refer to his Mormon faith while saying positive things about McCain -- are an effort by the campaign to test negative messages about itself while getting McCain blamed for the calls.
The new revelation could give more ammo to those who question whether the firm making the calls -- which is already reported to have on staff several people who have donated to the Romney campaign -- knowingly called Romney supporters because they could be counted on to tell the press about the calls and to suggest to reporters that Romney rival John McCain was behind them.
From the HuffPo article:
Roth and Kramer are now the third members of Romney's Iowa campaign to have publicly acknowledged received the calls. Ralph Watts, a state representative in Iowa, who also backs the former governor, was one of the first people to come forward.
And yet, during subsequent press interviews, neither Roth nor Kramer disclosed the positions they held on Romney's team. In fact, as several other reporters have pointed out, both individuals drastically downplayed their campaign associations. And in an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune, Roth took the opportunity to lash out against Sen. John McCain, the presidential candidate initially thought to be behind the calls.
"It was sick. It really was. It made me just furious," Roth told the paper. "If you didn't know enough about McCain, you'd think he was the white knight coming in on his charger saving the world and that Mitt Romney was tantamount to the devil."
The fact that three people on Romney's Iowa campaign staff found themselves on the receiving end of these controversial calls has led to suggestions that the candidate or organization behind the survey wanted it to go public. (Romney supporters were far more likely to come forward as the questions asked were offensive to the candidate they support).
This stinks to high heaven. There is NO QUESTION in my mind that Romney wanted this information to get out so that he would garner sympathy even as he helped to defuse a potential issue with respect to his Mormonism.
And the media fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Doesn't ANYONE do basic research any more? I mean, on today's front page, we apparently had the same problem with the pro-Giuliani firefighter who's also a staffer, and the media just didn't get it.
Now we have as many as THREE Romney staffers who the campaign pointed the media to, without disclosing they were staffers. And again, the media had no clue. No basic research.
I now have to believe that Romney himself was behind these calls. How can we get the media to pick up and run with this, in light of the new information that has arisen?
DTH