General

What is “Operation Infiltration”

Check Bizzyblog’s post, ROR and this FR thread to get up to date. This has attracted attention from Malkin and Wizbang.

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When I first got the email for the GOTP campaign, I was a little concerned that there wasn’t any security around making sure the right people were signing up to protect against a disinformation campaign.

After going through the program and making my calls, there is a potential for abuse. But right now, the last comment on this post makes it seem as if this was all a practical joke. Which makes sense, because if this were real, there’s a lot of people who would be in really deep trouble. I would note that there are some county prosecutors who seem like they are loaded for bear in this election:

“This really is an attack on the entire system, and it’s of paramount importance that we find out how this is happening and we stop it so it can’t happen again, one, and, two, find out who’s doing it, so we can prosecute them if possible,” said Mason.

That’s a ref to the “dead voter” problem in Cuyahoga. But I’m sure other illegal shenanigans would attract similar attention.

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UPDATE: Volokh has weighed in on the legal aspects.

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Update II:

Linwood campaign services is clearing the air:

I am writing today because I noticed this morning the posts on various blogs about something that BSB (Buckeye State Blog — Ed.) and Plunderbund had been writing about concerning infiltration of a Republican gotv effort. I was mainly concerned because my name, my business partner’s name and other people have been dragged into this mess. I have spoken with Russell Hughlock at BSB and he assured me it is a hoax designed to make people worry and not focus on their events in the final 24 hours before election day.

I want to state completely that I did not have any knowledge of this hoax or anything having to do with it until this morning when I called and demanded answers from Russell Hughlock at BSB. This was in response to the Free Republic comments section which took the time to publish my home address and telephone numbers as well as personal information belonging to myself and my business partner and our clients.

As to Buckeye State Blog being hosted at a hosting service that I own (we were doing websites for a time and it was just easier to have your own server than deal with a reseller) that situation will be rectified as soon as possible.

I hope that you will be able to correct any information that you are covering on your blog. If you have any questions, please email me and I will answer them to the best of my ability.

Thanks,
Ryan Fissel

Sounds like a stand-up guy and a good business owner.

It also appears that his partner has posted this on FR:

It’s time this mess got cleared up.

I’m Paul Ackerman, one of the two partners from Linwood Campaign Services.

Ryan Fissel is my business partner and he does own Chromahost, but it exists pretty much as a hosting company for our campaign consulting business.

Buckeye State Blog began to be hosted at Chromahost in February of this year once it became a statewide blog dedicated to Ohio Progressive Politics.

Russell Hughlock (who is NOT Russell Walters) runs Buckeye State Blog, we do not.

Russell, based on what I’ve leared since I started hearing about this at 6:15am this morning, is running some sort of hoax trying to get into your heads.

Frankly, I don’t care if he thinks it was successful or not, he’s an idiot and has been told repeatedly, and forcefully, to own up to this pathetic joke.

He hasn’t so we are now doing so. Tom at Bizzyblog has posted Ryan’s response and I’m posting this now.

The fun part was calling all of our current clients to let them know that people on the Internet was lumping them together in some sort of keystone cops plot. And the hardest part was telling my wife, Jean Herendeen Ackerman, about this.

You see, she ran and lost by 68 votes in the primary (on May 2nd … the January 15th reference was LAST January 15th) for state representative. Ryan Fissel acted as her campaign manager.

Ouch. Another stand-up guy and a reminder that there are good people on both sides. Win one for civility and common sense.

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