(FL) Roger Stone - What?

[Lunar]

(non-partisan, one of the top reporters in FL)
http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2009/10/roger-stone-machinations-in-floridas-us-senate-race.html

Few people took him seriously a couple years back when controversial Republican operative Roger Stone predicted New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's career would implode. After it did, Stone said he was the one who tipped off authorities to Spitzer's hooker hook-ups.

I didn't take Miami resident Stone especially seriously when he predicted months ago that another Democratic U.S. Senate candidate would emerge and very likely beat Kendrick Meek for the nomination. So when former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre jumped in, I wondered about his relationship with Stone, who has a reputation for being in the middle of bizarre political theatrics- from the "Brooks Brothers riots" that shut down the Miami-Dade recount in 2000 to the Al Sharpton presidential campaign in 2004.

"Roger Stone is a friend of mine for many, many years, and he has been for many years an adviser...He talked to me about this race about a year ago and said you need to keep an eye on this race,'' said Ferre, who also stressed that Stone is not advising or directly involved in his campaign.

Stone - who has previously worked alongside several of Ferre's Democratic consultants -  said the same thing: "I'm a Republican. I'm not switching sides."  Stone said he backs Charlie Crist, even if it doesn't always seem that way. "Maurice Ferre is a very old friend of mine with whom I have strong regard. I urged him to start looking at this race before Charlie Crist was a canddiate...I have always believed that Democratic nomination could be worth having for a candidate for broad appeal."

So Roger Stone is not practicing his black arts in the U.S. Senate race, got it? But also remember one of Roger Stone's rules: "Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack."

[Lunar]

TPM, partisan but legitimate reporting

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/is-maurice-ferre-the-manchurian-candidate.php


If the Florida Senate race wasn't already exciting enough, Democrats are now suggesting the latest candidate to join the fight is part of a bizarre plot to derail Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) run by the GOP (and/or Big Sugar).

Maurice Ferre, a former Miami mayor, has not won an election since 1993 and left his last political office three years later. But on Oct. 7 he decided to enter the Democratic primary for senate, where he faces an uphill climb against a well-funded and nationally-backed Meek, who had all but cleared the Democratic field months before Ferre got in. Ferre hasn't had to reveal fundraising numbers yet, but he's hired an experienced campaign team that suggests he's prepared to give Meek a serious fight. That would throw a monkey wrench into Meek's campaign machinery, which cleared the field of Dems months ago and is now geared up for the general election.

A growing number of conspiracy theorists say that's exactly why Ferre's a candidate.

The story first appeared last week in the St. Petersburg Times: One of the men Ferre had consulted with before he decided to throw his hat in the senate ring was Roger Stone, a public supporter of Gov. Charlie Crist (R) and something of an infamous figure in Florida politics.

According to Smith, Stone "predicted months ago" that a Democratic candidate would "emerge and very likely beat" Meek in the end. Stone told Smith about his connection with Ferre's bid: "Maurice Ferre is a very old friend of mine with whom I have strong regard. I urged him to start looking at this race before Charlie Crist was a candidate...I have always believed that Democratic nomination could be worth having for a candidate for broad appeal."

Ferre has admitted he and Stone talked about a senate bid, but "stressed that Stone is not advising or directly involved in his campaign."

The same can't be said of Stone's associates, though. Ferre's campaign advsior, Bill Fletcher, has worked with Stone in the past. Asked about the connection, one knowledgeable Florida Democrat told TPMDC today, "I have a lot of respect for the Machiavellian stuff Roger Stone does."

The Ferre connection with Crist goes beyond Stone. Ferre's campaign manger, Todd Wilder, was part of a group of Democrats, known as the Committee For Bipartisan Progress, that raised money for Crist during the 2006 Governor's race. Before joining the group, Wilder worked briefly for Crist's Democratic opponent, Jim Davis. He came to that campaign after Davis defeated the man Wilder had been working for, Rod Smith, in a contentious Democratic primary.

"It was basically Democrats for Crist," a Democrat close to the '06 race said. "It was formed out of the sour grapes of the primary."

The source said it wasn't likely that if Crist was behind Ferre, he would use Wilder to run things. "It seems a little crazy to me," the Democrat said. "It's more likely the sugar industry is propping up Ferre."

Big sugar has always played a role in Florida politics. In 2006, Democrats say, the sugar industry was behind the Comittee For Bipartisan Progress that Wilder was a member of. This time around, one source mused, the industry could be trying to hurt Meek by funding a Ferre bid.

But another Democrat familiar with the current race said it wasn't so far-fetched that Crist could be behind the Ferre campaign. "There are a lot of dots between them I have a hard time not connecting," the source said.

Meek's team has largely dismissed Ferre and said they're focused only on the general. One Meek supporter told TPMDC shortly after Ferre got in that the newcomer was destined to be "the Mike Gravel of this race."

A Florida Republican political operative not involved with the Crist campaign agreed with the characterization, suggesting that if a Republican wanted to upset Meek's momentum with a straw man, Ferre was probably not the guy to do it. But the source was surprised at the number of experienced operatives that have joined the Ferre camp and said it wasn't impossible to imagine something was up.

"Maybe he's running to build up his name ID and then switch to another race," the Republican said. "Who knows?"

For his part, Ferre has denied any outside influence on his bid. And Wilder told TPMDC today any suggestion he was working for a candidate other than Ferre was ridiculous and "very disrespectful" to Ferre.

"That's not what's going on," Wilder said. "This has all been ginned up by the opposition."

Wilder declined to say who exactly that opposition was, but he said the goal was to "take me off the field" because "everyone's worried that Ferre has a good team."

"I'll put my Democratic credentials up against anyone," he said. "Crist was the only time I ever supported the opponent of a Democrat."

He refused to say why he thought Crist would make a good governor but not a good senator. Asked why he thinks Crist shouldn't be in the Senate, he said "I support Maurice Ferre."

[Lunar]

Lunar's oddball conspiracy theory of the day: what if Ferre runs in the Democratic Primary as the "Hispanic" Democratic candidate and then after losing, drops out and runs in the general election as an independent...say...with the goal of 3% statewide...


and I wouldn't make this idea in any other place

[Lunar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Stone

some highlights

His own view of himself is as "a GOP hitman."

In the first grade, Stone claims, he broke into politics to further John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign: "I remember going through the cafeteria line and telling every kid that Nixon was in favor of school on Saturdays," Stone says. "It was my first political trick."

When he was a junior and vice president of the student government at a high school in northern Westchester County, New York, he manipulated the ouster of the president and succeeded him. When he ran for election as president for his senior year, he later said, he "built alliances and put all my serious challengers on my ticket. Then I recruited the most unpopular guy in the school to run against me. You think that's mean? No, it's smart."

Stone's political career began in earnest with activities such as contributing money to a possible rival of Nixon in the name of the Young Socialist Alliance — then slipping the receipt to the Manchester Union-Leader. He also got a spy hired by the Hubert Humphrey campaign who became Humphrey's driver. By day, Stone was officially a scheduler in the Nixon campaign. "By night, I'm trafficking in the black arts. Nixon's people were obsessed with intelligence."

in 1977 became national chairman of the Young Republicans

was an adviser to the former President in his post-presidential years, serving as "Nixon's man in Washington".

Stone said that former McCarthyisyt Roy Cohn helped him arrange for John B. Anderson to get the nomination of the Liberal Party of New York, a move that would help split the opposition to Reagan in the state. Stone said Cohn gave him a suitcase that Stone avoided opening and, as instructed by Cohn, dropped it off at the office of a lawyer influential in Liberal Party circles. Reagan carried the state with 46 percent of the vote. Speaking after the statute of limitations for bribery had expired, Stone later said, "I paid his law firm. Legal fees. I don't know what he did for the money, but whatever it was, the Liberal party reached its right conclusion out of a matter of principle."

With partners Charlie Black and Paul Manafort, he formed Black, Manafort, and Stone, a political consulting firm, described as "instrumental in the success of Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign." Republican political strategist Lee Atwater later joined the firm.

 involved with the controversial Willie Horton advertisement

In 1995, Stone was the president of Republican Senator Arlen Specter's campaign for the 1996 Republican Presidential nomination

Stone was for many years a lobbyist for Donald Trump on behalf of his casino business

Stone claimed Secretary of State James Baker recruited him to oversee the Miami-Dade County recount in the disputed 2000 Presidential election.  Stone has been credited with setting up street demonstrations in Florida to protest the recounts held after the 2000 presidential election;


...


Critics suggested that Stone was only working with Sharpton as a way to undermine the Democratic Party's chances of winning the election. Sharpton denies that Stone had any influence over his campaign



In 2007 Stone, a top adviser at the time to Joseph Bruno (the majority leader of the New York State Senate), was forced to resign by Bruno after allegations that Stone had threatened then gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer.  Stone was accused on an episode of Hardball with Chris Matthews on August 22, 2007 of being the voice on an expletive-laden voicemail threatening Bernard Spitzer, father of Eliot, with subpoenas.[24][25] Stone has consistently denied the reports. Thereafter, however, he resigned from his position as a consultant to the New York State Senate Republican Campaign Committee, at Bruno's request.

In January 2008, Stone founded Citizens United Not Timid, an anti–Hillary Clinton 527 group with an intentionally obscene acronym

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etc.

[Landslide Lyndon]

If he really wants to get Crist elected then perhaps he should use his "talents" to sabotage Rubio, not Meek.

[Bacon King]

Wow, this guy is a maniacal badass. He's like Hamilton except good and also not a kid on the internet.

[The Mikado]

He's that guy with the Nixon tattoo, right?  I vaguely remember him being in the news a couple years back.  Didn't he leave a threatening voicemail on Eliot Spitzer's father's voicemail?

[Lunar]

That's the guy.

[Sam Spade]

I have used Stone's rules for years in grading the quality of political campaigns.  Really textbook stuff.

[Lunar]

I have used Stone's rules for years in grading the quality of political campaigns.  Really textbook stuff.

His rules are things that are always supposed to be true in almost every campaign.

Now his bag of tricks, I'm sure is quite wide, you don't know how many steps ahead of you he is even if you do discover he's involved.  I'd have a hard time believing he's not backing Crist if he's backing someone, the man's a swinger and hardly one to criticize any of Crist's indiscretions

[Sam Spade]

I have used Stone's rules for years in grading the quality of political campaigns.  Really textbook stuff.

His rules are things that are always supposed to be true in almost every campaign.

Now his bag of tricks, I'm sure is quite wide, you don't know how many steps ahead of you he is even if you do discover he's involved.  I'd have a hard time believing he's not backing Crist if he's backing someone, the man's a swinger and hardly one to criticize any of Crist's indiscretions

In other words, Stone has a reason for doing what he's doing and we'll find out eventually.  OK, fine by me.

[Lunar]

Who knows if we'll find out eventually, the man is getting old and he seems to enjoy the statute of limitations laws