RoboCon : Cross-border election shopping

A Republican operative convicted of perpetrating election phone fraud for the Republican National Committee told interviewer Stephen Maher that "fraudulent calls in the last Canadian election are likely an American import" and a "fairly sophisticated operation".


Allen Raymond wrote a book about his stint as a GOP dirty trickster called How to Rig an Election in which he explains the use of tactics like phone jamming political opponents - hey, did Elections Canada ever investigate the over 10,000 phone jamming calls used to disrupt the NDP's online leadership vote this year ? - as well as harassment live calls intended to discourage opponents from voting at all. 


Raymond says he was approached for the illegal phone work by an RNC field director he knew called Jim Tobin, a regional chairman of George Bush's 2004 reelection campaign.
The RNC spent years and millions of dollars defending Tobin through umpteen court cases and appeals to choke off the flow of election fraud charges at just Raymond. When Raymond realized he was going under the bus alone, he talked.


Today the Ottawa Citizen and the G&M both report Elections Canada has confirmed 'Pierre Poutine' launched his fraudulent robocalls from the Guelph Con campaign election office.
Stephen Maher explains on CTV here.

When RoboCon first broke, longtime ReformCon insider and national Con campaign manager Jenni Byrne allegedly dumped Guelph campaign staffer lone gunman Michael Sona from his Parliament Hill job after an anonymous SunNews leak implicated him in the election fraud.

McMaher today on "American imports" : 

Guelph campaign worker Chris Crawford told [Elections Canada] Mathews that, while in Burke's campaign office, he had heard Sona speaking to campaign manager Ken Morgan about "how Americans do politics." The conversation referred to calling non-supporters late at night, pretending to be Liberals, or calling electors to tell them their polling stations had moved.

This doesn't prove Sona is Pierre Poutine, any more than it proves Con Marty Burke’s deputy campaign manager Andrew Prescott aka Blogging Tory Christian Conservative who set up the 'legit' if unreported robocalls with RackNine on the same computer is Poutine, although Stephen Maher, as seen in CTV clip above, is leaning to Prescott. 
Lone Guelph gunman theory on the electoral grassy knoll still doesn't explain the calls to 200 other ridings Elections Canada is still investigating. 



More cross-border election shopping ... 


The article on Allen Raymond notes a Canadian connection, also pointed out at Creekside a year ago. 
Maher :

Tobin's boss at the time, RNC political director Terry Nelson, was linked to the 2011 Canadian Conservative campaign through Patrick Muttart, who worked for him at Mercury Public Affairs in Chicago. Muttart, a former senior strategist, worked as a messaging consultant for the Conservatives in the 2011 campaign until he was fired for his role in providing Sun News Network with a fake photo of Michael Ignatieff in an American military uniform.

Muttart had resigned as Steve's deputy chief of staff in 2009 to become a managing director of Mercury's new Canada/US practice, while also working the Con war room in the last two elections and helping set up the Fox News North/Sun News brand.
Wayback machine : During Elections Canada's investigation into the Cons Election 2006 "in-and-out" money laundering scheme, Muttart was named by the Con Party's media buyer Retail Media as "their main campaign contact" and "his chief contact with the Conservative party for advertising for the next federal election."
The Cons promptly denied it and Muttart declined to appear before the Ethics committee to explain.

And another :

Before proceeding with his phone shenanigans for the RNC, Allen Raymond first obtained legal advice from the Bush/Cheney campaign lawyer who was also counsel  for Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, the PAC set up to smear John Kerry's war record during his election run for president. The SBVFT media consultant on the attack ads also worked for a Terry Nelson firm before it was merged into Mercury Public Affairs. Rachel Maddow's takedown of Nelson here (scroll down to vid).


Meanwhile  Republican fluffers Front Porch Strategies' Canadian liaison and former campaign manager to Jason Kenney's parliamentary secretary Rick Dykstra, Jim Ross, has been hired as a "campaign analyst" by Manitoba Con Party leadership hopeful Brian Pallister.

Look, I realize cross-border election shopping is not exactly new or even news - in 2008 a campaign fundraiser was held for John McCain's presidential election bid was held in Calgary for the 80,000 Americans living there - but are we Canadian citizens or just North American election commodities?

Pogge nails the important quote from Maher's article on Allen Raymond who says :

"Voters are just a commodity when you're in this business," he said. "You're just trying to get enough to win. Are they people? Sure they are, but at the end of the day they're just part of the transaction."

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