|
|
"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
|
Ex-Bennett staffer linked to 'temple mailer' [UT-Sen]
|
|---|
| Parent(s) |
Race
|
| Contributor | particleman |
| Last Edited | particleman Jun 15, 2010 07:52am |
| Logged |
0
|
| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - Salt Lake Tribune |
| News Date | Tuesday, June 15, 2010 01:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | A Washington lobbyist who had worked for Sen. Bob Bennett and supported his re-election bid apparently played a key role in a mailer designed to look like opponent Mike Lee was challenging the senator's faith.
Tim Stewart, who spent seven years as a legislative aide for Bennett and now is a lobbyist and founder of the group Saddle PAC, coordinated the mailer with a pair of D.C.-area consulting firms, according to e-mails and invoices provided to The Salt Lake Tribune.
Stewart said late Monday that he wasn't the mastermind, but instead was a go-between for a group of Utahns whom he would not identify. "I sincerely wish that I could take credit for what may be the most brilliant and possibly the biggest single game-changing political play in Utah politics in the last 20 years. But I can't. I am not that diabolical nor creative," he said. "Instead, I am just a two-bit, wannabe political consultant, contacted by some Utah folks wanting to exercise their First Amendment rights. They came up with a great idea and we found a vendor and that's about the extent of it."
The ad, claiming to be sent from an unregistered group calling itself Utah Defenders of Constitutional Integrity, pictured Lee above an LDS temple and Bennett above the U.S. Capitol. Below, it asked, "Which candidate really has Utah values?"
The Tribune previously had traced the bulk-mail permit number to a Cleveland-based company, Hotcards.com, which said it had been hired by Karp and Precision Strategies to send the ad.
"I'm shocked and appalled that someone supporting my opponent's campaign would resort to such thuggish, Chicago-style tactics," Lee said. "These tactics were clearly intended to hurt my campaign and help my opponent's."
A post-convention poll by Brigham Young University's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy showed that about a third of those who saw the mailer initially believed it had been sent by the Lee campaign and found it highly offensive. |
| Share |
|
|
2¢
|
|
| Article | Read Full Article |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
|
