Long before candidates for the presidential election in 2008 have even announced, the digging for dirt has begun.
Nearly three years before the 2008 presidential election, the Democratic National Committee is already digging for dirt on one potential candidate in the race: Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.
Earlier this month, virtually every agency in state government received public records requests for ''any and all records of communication" involving Willard [Mitt] Romney dating to 1947, the year of his birth. The letters, each dated Dec. 7, are signed by Shauna Daly, who only provided a post office box in Washington, D.C., as her address.
Yeah, best to be discreet. It's not like anyone would, you know, check to see who you are.
A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee confirmed yesterday that Daly is employed as its deputy research director. Prior to that, she worked as a campaign staff member for presidential candidate John Edwards, the former Democratic senator from North Carolina. She also worked on other races since graduating from Smith College in 2001, including a US Senate race in Florida.
The spokesman, Luis Miranda, said the Democrats are seeking information on 11 potential presidential candidates, including Romney.
This is yet another unfunded mandate, the DNC deputizing the state government, at taxpayor expense, to dig up dirt on the Governor, unless the state is successful in recouping the cost. And "dating to 1947, the year of his birth?" To quote John Stossel, give me a break. The DNC is, I'm sure, not alone in this. The RNC has their own opposition research department.
I'm fairly certain that politics is not for me. You have to be willing to have your every utterance and activity exposed for all the world, and you have to be slimey enough to do the same to your opponent. And virtually none of it has anything to do with ideas, character and governance, all matters on which Romney is fairly strong. He'd have to be, to be elected governor in a state that boasts two of the most liberal senators in the nation, and voted for Kerry by 62-37.
12/31/05 1500: Jay Tea noticed too.
