Anti-Otten Shenanigans Prompt Response

By Matthew Gagnon
January 26, 2010

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Something very strange has been going on for the past week or two. A short time ago I was alerted to a new Twitter account – known as Hard Knox – which was engaging in some odd activity. Namely, it was re-tweeting a number of Bruce Poliquin’s official tweets, as well as posting several pro-Poliquin comments and links. The campaign says it has no idea who this person is, and is not (to their knowledge) a member of the campaign or a volunteer.

Today we came across a YouTube account from this very same “Hard Knox” persona, because it had uploaded a rather aggressive anti-Otten video, attacking him for running American Ski Company into the ground.

The video:

Immediately, the Poliquin campaign, seeking to distance itself from the perception that they were behind this ad, issued the following statement:

Brunswick Today, Bruce Poliquin, Candidate for Maine Governor, released the following statement regarding an online ad attacking Les Otten, one of Poliquin’s opponents in the gubernatorial race:

“In the strongest possible terms, I deplore the online advertisement singling out Les Otten. There is no place for this kind of attack ad in our race.

“I have personally spoken with the Les Otten campaign to express my strong disapproval. I hope the other candidates join me in publicly condemning the ad as a childish and unnecessary attack.”

Likewise, the person creating and disseminating the ad should realize that they are doing nothing more than breaking campaign finance laws. This race will be run above board. There is a time and place to answer questions about our pasts, but this is neither, concludes Poliquin.

Poliquin’s comment about breaking campaign finance laws is a subtle implication that a campaign was somehow behind this ad. By posting a video with no disclosure about who paid for it, campaign finance laws would have been broken.

This of course, makes the assumption that it is a professionally done ad. I remain unconvinced – mostly because I have the requisite skillset to make something like this, and I am by no means a professional video editor.

Whoever is actually behind this spent the last week or two attempting to paint themselves in pro-Poliquin terms. The reasons for this are plentiful:

To make it look like the Poliquin campaign is behind the ad, thus blackening his eye as a dirty, trench warfare style candidate
To force a release repudiating it from Poliquin – raising the profile of the video so more people will see it and know about it, making it more controversial
Or, most cynically, because it did come from someone inside the Poliquin camp who was trying an age old tactic to make something look like such an obvious fraud that no one would suspect that it is in fact the real source

To believe #3, you’d have to have an extremely low opinion of both Poliquin and his team, as well as a highly cynical view of politics. Do not count me among anyone who believes that – I personally believe it was a mix of #1 and #2.

In any event, both the Twitter account and the YouTube account have both been disabled, merely an hour after Poliquin’s release. I’m not sure how this happened, but my guess was that Otten’s team may have contacted both Twitter and YouTube to complain about possible campaign finance violations, prompting them to take down both accounts (though, it should be noted that the video is still up, even though the account is dark. If it ever goes away, I have downloaded it.)

But this does bring up a larger narrative – namely what role the average shmuck with a computer and some minor video editing skills has to play in the first Maine gubernatorial election in the modern social media age (2006 really doesn’t count). Videos like this will likely continue to crop up in the next several months from a variety of sources, and so long as they are not paid for by campaigns, they are fair game.

Will videos like this continue to make noise? Will these things cause changes in public opinion about a candidate? Is it appropriate to focus on this level of grass roots hit job tactics?

No way to really know at this point – we’ll have to find that out as time goes by.

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Tags: Advertising, Bruce Poliquin, Campaign Finance, Les Otten, Video

16 Responses to “Anti-Otten Shenanigans Prompt Response”

Derrick Grant

26. Jan, 2010

The video has been removed from YouTube . . hmmmmm.
Matthew Gagnon

26. Jan, 2010

Not for long – this is why I downloaded it.
Matthew Gagnon

26. Jan, 2010

Back up. If YouTube pulls it down again, I’ll throw it up on Vimeo.
Rufus

26. Jan, 2010

“competent management” and “shell games”. I seem to have read these exact phrases hundreds of times recently in blog comments from a certain candidate’s supporters.
Robyn

26. Jan, 2010

I think Matt is just being nice. This REEKS of Poliquin, so count me as a believer in #3. As Rufus said, it is in line with everything his apologists say.

Not that the ad is wrong, but this is another in a long line of dirty tricks from Poliquin. What a scumbag.
Steve

26. Jan, 2010

Call me silly, but if I were making this attack ad and trying to make it look like it was done by the Poliquin campaign, I would definitely throw in some Poliquin talking points like “competent manager”. Duh. It’s pretty obvious someone wants people to think the Poliquin campaign is behind what he/she did. Pretty crappy thing to do, but I guess that’s politics.
Rufus

26. Jan, 2010

I wouldn’t go as far to say that Poliquin personally had anything to do with this. That wasn’t my intent and didn’t mean to imply it. Supporters can and will do strange things on their own time. (I’m a huge Ron Paul fan so I know a bit about crazy supporters I do wholeheartedly agree that whoever did this has some kind of ties to the Poliquin campaign. Those ties might be as nebulous as a a friend’s brother’s cousin’s former college roommate, but it any case it’s someone that has drank the Poliquin cool aid for better or for worse.
Ben

27. Jan, 2010

A few thoughts:

NYA Spam, Portland GOP event, Asroturfing…

Eerily quiet from a certain canidate’s supporters.

Spineless and dirty
Nathan D.

27. Jan, 2010

Hardknoxvol? Really? Wasn’t me, scout’s honor.
mainah

27. Jan, 2010

So who accused Poliquin of putting this ad out?
I must have missed that part, or else this is ridiculous. Was the ad emailed to anyone, or distributed in any way besides Poliquin’s press release claiming he didn’t do it? I’m telling you, everything this guy is involved with is shady. And now he’s trying to sell this convoluted conspiracy theory that someone pretended they were a supporter and put out and ad against his opponent? Please!
Dell_Cue

28. Jan, 2010

The only way I heard about it was when Poliqin made the press release. Made me go right to the video until it disappeared. Is there polling that shows Otten is over-taking Poliqin?
Derek Viger

28. Jan, 2010

I wouldn’t say any recent polling puts Otten over Poliquin. They both raised high amounts last period. Poliquin – $126k in donations Otten – $75k. Both have the most cash on hand of all the Republican candidates. Poliquin – $306k Otten – $154k. In a strict money fight Otten is Poliquin’s biggest competition at the moment.
CC

28. Jan, 2010

This ad here, the people who put it out knows that in the Republican “rat race” for the Primary in June that they have competition and why not start playing the dirty card games early. Why not get the two “bulls” to fight. That gives the other candidates some “golden door” to make it look like the “pure-blood” candidate. But what so ever, the one who ever put this out and tried to steal a certain someones indentity to make it look like Poliquins staff or volunteers, can see the threat that Poliquin is putting out. But welcome to the world of politics, I must say. Who ever put this ad, I must say I really dont think they brought anything to the table yet.
Reid

30. Jan, 2010

I can not believe the unsubstantiated comments made here. First off, why would Bruce ever have this video produced? The video was downloaded by someone who showed support for Bruce so he has an direct interest in repudiating the video. If anything this was either done by a Bruce supporter who was not connected to the campaign and made a bad decision or was someone attempting to taint the Poliquin campaign. But I can not see a justification for blaming the Poliquin campaign.

I find it repugnant that Robyn says, “Not that the ad is wrong, but this is another in a long line of dirty tricks from Poliquin. What a scumbag.”

That is distasteful and mean. Just a comment that served no purpose at all but to destroy your own credibility on the poll.

I agree with Mr. Gagnon. This was either possibility #1 or #2 and in my opinion not related to the Poliquin campaign; it just wouldn’t be effective campaigning.
harry

01. Feb, 2010

It doesn’t matter who posted it; facts is facts; where’s the $165million American Skiing IPO now? How many people work for Otten’s German-made pellet stove company; less than 10?

AND – outcomes is outcomes. See PPP Polls; Otten is EASIER TO BEAT than Mills; so, if you want a Democrat (who might be less corporate-welfare oriented), VOTE Rep. to get Otten nominated in June Primary; then Mitchell or Rowe in November.
Jarrod

24. Feb, 2010

I think it would be just like the Otten Campaign to release this video itself, accomplishing two goals:
1) get the negative attacks (also known as the “truth” in many cases) out into the mind of the public now, with enough time left before the primaries for voters to forget / decide they don’t care, lessening the likelihood that similar attacks are effective in the days and weeks leading up to the primary election and the general campaign season, AND
2) use it as an opportunity to paint a strong rival as someone who could possibly be backing such attacks, and as an added bonus, force Poliquin to condemn attacks against Otten, which both helps Otten’s campaign and actually makes Poliquin sounds more guilty at the same time.

I certainly wouldn’t put it past the Otten Campaign to do such a thing.

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