With just 7 days left in this campaign, John Cornyn and his campaign would rather talk about the internet than issues.
In an e-mail titled, "24 Hours", Kevin McLaughlin, Cornyn Communications Directory, blasts the Noriega campaign and the online community for believing it is time for a change.
Let's go with the background first and then talk about how hypocritical the Cornyn campaign is being.
Last Friday, the Cornyn campaign stole footage from the Austin Chronicle and I am guessing Fox News. They then produced a negative online ad comparing Howard Dean's Iowa speech in 2004 with Rick Noriega. We of course covered the story.
The Cornyn campaign never admitted or apologized for stealing the footage, but issues are more important, so we remained silent.
That same night, Rick Noriega won an election. Of course it wasn't the election, but Rep. Noriega won an online contest at DailyKos. Noriega won the "Hell to Pay" contest with 42% of the vote and beat out 6 other highly qualified Democrats. The contest translated to dollars so what did the Cornyn campaign do? Attack.
After 96 hours, Kevin McLaughlin asks the question, "Did you see Rick Noriega condemn the comments?"
Lucky for us, he also answers his inquiry with a simple, "You didn't?"
Something seems hypocritical here, doesn't it? (Like McLaughlin, I will answer the question for you). Of course it does. On June 30, 2008 we realized David Beckwith was trolling progressive and news blogs and made sure our readers would know not to trust Buck Smith.
Beckwith was challenging people to duals and referring to himself in the third person.
How did the Cornyn campaign respond? With class.
On the same day, McLaughlin called me up early in the morning to say we had, "ummm.... Bad reporting." He then went on to send me this official campaign response:
What?!?! 'Buck Smith' isn't a real person?!?! Are you serious?? People blog under screen names?!?! I am shocked...next thing I know you'll be saying the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus aren't real either. What kind of world are we living in?!?!
With McLaughlin's e-mail, you have to guess that Cornyn condemned Beckwith within hours of hearing about this outrageous campaign tactic.
Well, Cornyn did respond-- sort of. Within hours he said that Beckwith would remain on the campaign and Cornyn himself said, "the campaign had no comment".
So McLaughlin pens the line, "Rick Noriega should show some political courage and repudiate these hateful comments from his hired staff. His continued silence speaks volumes about his partisanship, and his willingness to do anything to further his own political ambitions."
We would like to remind Kevin that Sen. Cornyn has been silent for months, where is the outrage there?
In case you are wondering, the comment that has the Cornyn camp so outraged goes on to say...
John Cornyn is now looking to become the most powerful Republican in Washington once Bush expires and McConnell is retired. In fact, he's even musing about a 2012 Presidential run. On top of that, after weeks of bland black and white ads reminiscent of John McCain's early campaign, he's turned to attack Rick Noriega & Howard Dean, and stolen footage from an Austin Progressive Paper in doing so.
The politics of fear and deception must come to an end. In the final days of the campaign, Cornyn, his staff, and the Republican Party have all shown us they can't win on issues. They have decided to go back to baseless, hypocritical hyperbolic attacks on Lt. Col. Rick Noriega's character.
As readers may have noticed, we at BOR have taken a particular interest in the open SD-17 special election (you can read most of the posts here) and have raised over $1,000 for Chris Bell.
Now it seems like someone else is interested in the race, too: Ron Wilson.
You would stand a better chance being raped by a water buffalo than having any accurate information on Ron Wilson or Tom Craddick.
Former Craddick assistant parliamentarian Ron Wilson seems to not only be interested in SD-17, he seems to be working with Republicans to recruit and keep questionable candidates and the ballot. Wilson is also spinning the Republican talking points and defaming Democratic candidates and their supporter.
Before I go much further, it's time to let everyone know that Ron Wilson is not Baby Snooks as one reader speculated. That did get me wondering though, about the writing pattern of user "D. Davenport" who has only shown up a handful of times to attack Democratic House Leader Jim Dunnam, defend failed candidate Latreese Cooke, defend Donna Keel's brother-in-law and Craddick Parliamentarian Terry Keel, and Craddick D Sylvester Turner.
D. Davenport has an extensive understanding (although faulty interpretation) of House rules. D. Davenport has written almost exclusively in Austin, but seems to know a lot about Houston elected officials and races. Most interesting, D. Davenport has made it a point to lie about matters of public record including payments and statements on the House floor.
At one point in June of last year, D. Davenport said, "You have no idea who you are corresponding with nor do you need to know."
After some investigation, we can tell you we know who D. Davenport is.
D. Davenport is none other than Ron Wilson.
That's right, former Assistant House Parliamentarian and State Representative Ron Wilson is the one who has been attacking readers and calling people racists on Burnt Orange Report.
Like all our registered community members, Ron Wilson provided an e-mail address when he registered. The e-mail he provided only had two results when you google it. One site is the state bar of Texas. The other is a car forum, where a guest, "ron_wilson" talks shop about high end cars.
The point here is that D. Davenport, like Buck Smith is a paid political operative. They concealed their identity, picked fights with our community members, and expected to get away with it. We don't go looking up every user account. (For one, there are over 4,000 users and besides that, we generally expect people to play fair.)
In fact, if a reader hadn't speculated that Baby Snooks was Ron Wilson, we never would have found out who D. Davenport was. I wouldn't have looked through his 20 comments to realize a pattern.
Because of "D. Davenport's" comments, one reader called to tell me Ron Wilson admitted to recruiting Stephanie Simmons to challenge Chris Bell in Senate District 17 -- saying simply, "What do you think about what we did to your boy Bell?"
How do you feel about that? We don't like it and we don't like "Buck Smith" or "D. Davenport" style deception on Burnt Orange Report.
If you don't like it either, please feel to give a dollar for every comment Buck Smith and or D. Davenport has made on BOR to either TexBlog PAC or the House Democratic Campaign Committee (HDCC) to make sure we can end this sort of deception in Austin.
Rob Jessmer, campaign manager for Junior Senator John Cornyn, said the thousand of people attending Netroots Nation were here for one reason...
They are here for one reason -- to rally around the Noriega campaign as we approach the final three months of the campaign.
Seems like a striking statement since we ran into Cornyn's senior strategist David Beckwith (aka Buck Smith). Beckwith registered for the event, and we have video uploading of him enjoying some panels in the exhibit all.
I wonder if Beckwith agrees with Jessmer when he says, "It is ironic they chose to come to Texas because I am sure the Netroots participants will look around and ask-did we get lost on the way to Berkeley?"
One thing that was funny was that Beckwith poked his head in to the Lone Star Candidates forum this morning at 9 a.m. and he failed to follow the rules by wearing his credentials. Is Beckwith hiding? Is he ashamed of who he is or what he is doing? Does he think Austin is like Berkeley or does he support Rick Noriega like Jessmer implies. I doubt it.
It would be naive to think that Beckwith has switched sides. So that leaves one option, Beckwith is here spying and since John Cornyn approves of everything Beckwith does, that means Cornyn wants him here.
A few days ago, David Mauro asked an important question, was David Beckwith using federal resources to campaign or was he campaigning for Junior Senator John Cornyn while the taxpayers picked up the tab.
With over 80 comments on BOR alone, Beckwith very clearly posted comments during traditional work hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.). Immediately, Beckwith has violated the spirit of the Hatch Act because he is no longer working on a campaign during his off time hours. At best, Beckwith is a ghost worker and taking taxpayer dollars for no work. At worst, he is paying paid by tax payers to actively engage in partisan political activities.
Senate employees are compensated from funds of the Treasury for regular performance of official duties. They are not paid to do campaign work. In the words of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia: ''It is clear from the record that Congress has recognized the basic principle that government funds should not be spent to help incumbents gain reelection.''
[...]
An employee's ''own time'' includes time beyond regular working hours, any accrued annual leave or non-government hours of a part-time employee. Staff may not be required to do political work as a condition of Senate employment. Just as Senate employees are free to campaign for their employing Members on their own time, they may also use their free time or, with the permission of their employing Members, reduce their Senate hours (with a commensurate reduction in pay) to campaign for presidential candidates, other federal candidates, or state or local aspirants. With respect to the question of leave time to perform campaign activities, it is the Committee's understanding that the Senate does not recognize a ''leave of absence.''
Already Beckwith seems to have violated the law, but let's look at some of his comments. Beckwith responds almost exclusively to posts relating to the U.S. Senate race between Noriega and Watts or Noriega and Cornyn.
Let's go through some of the comments now (note most of these comments are during normal work hours and none make it clear that Buck Smith is Beckwith in any way). In one of Buck Smith/ David Beckwith's first comments, he points our readers to a statement by Sen. Cornyn that shows why TSA shouldn't have collective bargaining. Another work time comment critiques a poll done by Survey USA. Yet another comment during business hours asks for Q1 fundraising totals from his boss, John Cornyn. Mr. Beckwith steals an article from Roll Call here and another article on production quality here (did his boss or taxpayers pay for these?). Beckwith tries to suppress Noriega's fundraising here and he attacks the online community and our incredible fundraising efforts here.
Those are just some of the campaign comments he made (there are about 20 more), but I wanted to spend some time on hypocrisy as well.
On more than one occasion, Beckwith either started a rumor/story on BOR or called out other consultants for not mentioning their name. Again it is important to note, at no time did Beckwith mention who he was, who he worked for, or that he was not using state funded internet or computers or time to post these comments.
He outed local political operatives here, here, and he tried incorrectly here. On the other hand he kicked off a story close to home for him here and actively campaign against Rosemary Lehmberg here.
Let's be clear. Beckwith was actively campaigning for John Cornyn. He may or may not have used state resources but he clearly used state time. He violated the Hatch Act directly by advocating against Rosemary Lehmberg for District Attorney and may have violated it another 20 to 30 times from other comments. Beckwith never identified he was or who he worked for so it is likely he knew what he was doing was wrong. While Karen Hughes did not fire Beckwith, it is clear John Cornyn needs to or investigators should find out how much Cornyn knew and what taxpayer resources were going to Beckwith's online endeavors.
Thanks to Vince for getting this on YouTube. For the record, that is really me and not my impersonator.
Now the thing I find funny is that John Cornyn doesn't even respond to the question. Some people like the internet, some people don't is not really the answer to any question... especially this one. Also, to the Cornyn campaign staff, Buck Smith is David Beckwith. Not standing by Buck Smith means you aren't standing by David Beckwith. Let's be clear cause your statement seems to imply you stand by one but not the other, and that's just silly.
Yesterday, Matt broke the story that David Beckwith, who worked for John Cornyn's campaign as well as his Senate office, had been posting anonymously on BOR under the name "Buck Smith" for almost 16 months.
Beckwith is no low level staffer, either. He has worked for Dan Quayle (when he was Vice-President), George W. Bush during his presidential campaign and David Dewhurst, just to name a few. Unfortunately for Beckwith, the list of his employers is nearly identical to the list of people who have fired him.
His long resume, however, did not keep him from making anonymous attacks on Rick Noriega while being employed by John Cornyn.
Of course, it is not illegal (although still very stupid and unethical) to do so while working for a campaign. However, it certainly is illegal to engage in this activity on the taxpayers' time.
Just a quick glance at the more than 80 comments that Beckwith wrote shows us that over 20 of them were during work hours (and we're being generous, giving him 9 to 5, while everyone knows that people in senate offices and campaigns routinely work longer hours).
How many of David Beckwith's 84 comments were written while he was being paid by taxpayers? How much electioneering did he engage in on federal computers?
These are questions that we all deserve answers to.
(In addition to being profiled on KVUE news tonight in Austin, this story is starting to get national attention. After Cornyn's ridiculous "Big Jooooohhnnn" ad -- which was even spoofed on the Daily Show -- how many more times can we expect Cornyn's staff to run a joke of a campaign between now and election day? Texans deserve better - elect Rick Noriega! - promoted by Phillip Martin)
Longtime readers know that in order to register to comment on the site, you must set up an account and provide an email address. It's a way to ensure accountability and prevent abuse in our community. However, we sometimes still have problems with abusive users that create sock puppet accounts to harass and intimidate writers and other commenters.
Many of you have become familiar with user Buck Smith's abusive comments that troll the site, attack and personally insult users and writers, and impugn the integrity of our community, our Democratic candidates and our Democratic values.
We have a policy that our commenters have helped enforce that requires us to disclose our jobs and who pays us. Our commenters have done the same. When political consultants or staffers post on this site, we know who they are and where they are coming from, ensuring that no false representation is being had.
When a staffer for Lt. Col. Noriega made a dumb mistake and falsely represented himself as a blogger to the Cornyn campaign, he was rightfully excoriated. When a Democratic consultant created an anonymous website, he was rightfully questioned. In 2007, user Buck Smith began posting on this and other sites, mainly on threads involving Lt. Col. Rick Noriega or Sen. John Cornyn. He attacked diarists and commenters and provided pro-Cornyn spin on many items. In the interest of full disclosure, and in order to keep everything fair, and since Buck Smith has not disclosed who he is, we thought we would clue you in that he is David Beckwith, John Cornyn's senior staffer.
You know who we are and who we work for. You know who the Democratic consultants and staffers that comment on the site are, and who they work for. Now you know who is the Republican operative, and who he works for. Keep that in mind every time he leaves comments attacking you for supporting Lt. Col. Rick Noriega. Keep that in mind every time he takes to the site to spin for Senator John Cornyn. Keep that in mind when you realize that all of the staffers for Lt. Col. Rick Noriega have disclosed their day jobs, while Senator Cornyn's staffer lurk in the shadows, using age old dirty whisper campaigns in an online forum.
"If you're going to misrepresent yourself, be aware of caller i.d." Walsh said. "I don't think misrepresenting yourself is in line with Texas values. I just find it somewhat ham-handed."
Interestingly, it was Buck Smith who kicked the story off online on an unrelated BOR post. Beckwith, linked to no outside material but did get the ball rolling using his deceptive user name with this comment.
Today, the Cornyn campaign called and I offered a chance for them to comment directly on the fact that David Beckwith has been concealing his identity on blogs. The Cornyn campaign spokesman Kevin McLaughlin had this to say (no emphasis added):
What?!?! 'Buck Smith' isn't a real person?!?! Are you serious?? People blog under screen names?!?! I am shocked...next thing I know you'll be saying the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus aren't real either. What kind of world are we living in?!?!
To our young readers, we are sorry you had to hear about Santa Claus this way. We didn't want you to know so soon, but I promised to post their quote in it's entirety and completely unedited.
Beckwith has over 80 comments as Buck Smith starting in March. He sets benchmarks for Noriega, attacks Democrats, talks about the Watts vs. Noriega match up, but nowhere does he say who he is or who he works for. Oh and this morning when I talked to Kevin, I told Beckwith I had heard from reliable sources that Beckwith would be fired. He had no response as of 8:10 this morning.
It's not often you hear about the consultants or campaign operatives on the campaign trail, but since "Big Bad John" aired at the Republican convention, two names keep popping up on our radar-Karen Hughes and David Beckwith. Now there our rumors swirling about both Karen Hughes and David Beckwith.
Karen Hughes is a highly prominent Republican consultant and most recognize her from her work with the Governor and President Bush and as former Executive Director of the Republican Party of Texas. Hughes is a talented operative with a long track record of working on tough campaigns with other consultants like Karl Rove.
David Beckwith is probably a new name to most people. While he is a former Time reporter and staffer to both Vice President Dan Quale and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, he is best known for his flubs and firings than his successes.
Back in 2005, Beckwith left Hutchison's camp to go work for Junior Senator John Cornyn, a move that brought a few eyes with it.
Beckwith has been in the public eye frequently, but he has always stayed slightly under the radar. While good at what he does, he does have a tendency to make huge and erroneous errors. Back in 2005, our own Byron LaMasters saw Hutchison's hire of Beckwith as a signal she was gearing up for a run to be Governor in Texas. However, Beckwith's history of yap first, think second has absolutely gotten him in trouble.
In 2003, Kuff highlighted a series of huge blunders and bad quotes from Beckwith when he was working with Lt. Gov David Dewherst.
Senators said a spokesman for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst made inappropriate comments in a published report by suggesting the Democrats consider themselves akin to Rosa Parks, whose refusal to yield her seat at the front of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama contributed to the civil rights movement.
The spokesman, David Beckwith, was quoted by Scripps Howard's Austin bureau today saying of the absent Democrats: "After they got" to New Mexico "thinking they were going to stay a few days and then declare victory or whatever they thought they were going to do, they got captured by the Democratic National Committee blowing smoke up their rears and telling them what great Americans they were. So now they've gone from making a statement to 'doing the right thing.' They think they are Rosa Parks II."
Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston, who is African American, said he was "personally offended" by the comment and contended the comment reflected a history of similar lapses by Beckwith, who once worked for Vice President Dan Quayle.
"He owes the entire state of Texas an apology," Ellis said.
Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos of Austin said Beckwith deserves a kick in the rear.
"He's pulled the race card," Barrientos said. "He's dealt himself a very bad hand."
Sen. Royce West of Dallas said he started to give Beckwith "a sheet and a hood" but decided that was too reactive.
Beckwith, informed of the criticism, said today he was simply telling Scripps Howard that the Democratic flight was "not a historic event. I'm sorry if anybody is offended."
This of course, is the same Beckwith that said the 2002 statewide Democratic candidates are "based on a racial quota system" causing then candidate John Cornyn to totally disavow Beckwith and his racist language.
Now, it appears Beckwith is at it again. Rumors circulating within the campaign world are now saying Beckwith has been fired by long time co-worker Karen Hughes on the John Cornyn re-elect campaign.
Beckwith appears to be the genius behind, "Big Bad John" and as Cornyn has already said, "My staff convinced me it was a good idea. Maybe I need a new staff." It appears that is what he is doing. Hughes already has a track record of firing Beckwith, so this isn't the jump it originally appears to be.
Cornyn is at worst having a hard time cracking the 50% approval mark and Texas does look like the Democratic wave could hit it. Firing Beckwith now is less of a story than firing him in September, and it is absolutely clear that Beckwith is more of a liability than an asset. For now it seems like Cornyn is fulfilling his promise to get new staff before the staff completely sinks his re-elect chances.
Update: I actually called the Cornyn campaign today and they stand by the fact Karen Hughes does not work for the campaign. However, nobody is confirming David Beckwith still works for the campaign. Even if Karen Hughes is not a paid member of the campaign, the bigger story still seems to stand. More at noon.
