Tearing up Dem registration cards not first Sproul & Assoc. dirty trick

This story hit the "mainstream press" today, but AlterNet has more, and had it sooner --


Republican Dirty Tricks

By Max Blumenthal, AlterNet. Posted October 15, 2004.

Republican operative Nathan Sproul's company is under investigation for allegedly destroying voter registration forms signed by Democrats. Now comes new evidence about Sproul's connections to the Bush-Cheney campaign.


Just how close is dirty trickster Nathan Sproul to the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign?

AlterNet has learned that Sproul, the former Arizona Republican Party and Christian Coalition director, has cozy ties to a group of consultants working on the Bush/Cheney campaign. According to a Democratic source well-placed in Arizona political circles, Sproul's firm, Sproul and Associates, operates next door to the office of Gordon C. James Public Relations (GCJPR) in Phoenix, a Republican PR company which is coordinating various Bush/Cheney campaign events nationwide and has provided PR services for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Last spring, one of GCJPR's executives, who is an advisory board member of Bush's re-election campaign, served as the chair of a ballot campaign Sproul was quarterbacking, while, according to the source, Sproul collaborated with a GCJPR employee who is a White House consultant on a scheme to get independent candidate Ralph Nader on the Arizona ballot. In both instances, Sproul's company, Voter Outreach of America, was involved in gathering signatures.

In Nevada, Voter Outreach of America is accused by former employees of shredding the registration forms of thousands of Democrats; in West Virginia, Voter Outreach of America employees say they were instructed to mislead voters into registering Republican and voting for Bush; in Oregon, yet another swing state, the state attorney general has opened a criminal investigation into allegations that Sproul's firm, which is Voter Outreach of America's parent company, was involved in intentionally destroying or discarding voter registration forms signed by Democrats. According to OpenSecrets.org, Sproul's firm received $125,000 this year from the Republican National Committee for voter registration and another $500,000 for "political consulting."

The cozy ties between Sproul and Bush operatives should raise a serious question: Is Sproul simply an overzealous lone wolf, or are his activities part of a concerted effort by the Bush/Cheney campaign to subvert the democratic process?

Gordon C. James, the founder and director of GCJPR, is a longtime Bush apparatchik. According to his bio on GCJPR's website, James helped handle media relations for President George H.W. Bush as the White House "lead advance representative." During George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign, James' firm handled PR and event management for Bush's Iowa Caucus campaign, all three debates against Al Gore, two campaign train trips and his election night festivities in Austin, Texas. Recently, GCJPR organized a Bush mega-rally in Phoenix and an appearance by Laura Bush at another campaign rally in Minneapolis. James also worked for five months as L. Paul Bremer's spinmeister in Baghdad.....

(Dynamite re. collusion with Nader operatives: "....a GCJPR employee, Meghan Rose, worked with Sproul on a clandestine campaign to get Nader on the Arizona ballot last spring. Last June, Derek Lee of Lee Petitions told me that while his company was handling various signature drives in Arizona, Sproul's Voter Outreach of America was paying petitioners to collect as many signatures as they could for Nader's ballot qualification campaign. Once rumors began emerging about covert Republican assistance to Nader, Sproul 'put the hush-hush on it real quick,' Lee said....In order to cover his tracks, Sproul devised a clever scheme. According to the source, Sproul tasked GCJPR's Rose to drive the Nader petitions to a 'low-end' motel in Scottsdale where Jenny Breslyn, the person officially contracted by the Nader campaign to oversee its signature drive, was staying. There, Breslyn and her employees mixed the petitions in with their own, in effect, brushing them clean of Sproul's fingerprints."

And, on the possibility of some of these tricksters ending up behind bars: "In Oregon, Sproul's firm is being investigated by the state attorney general and could face a class-C felony, punishable by five years in jail, for allegedly altering and destroying voter registration forms.")

http://www.alternet.org/election04/20194/


Link to AP story, "GOP Voter Drive Accused of Tossing Cards":
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041023/ap_on_el_pr/voter_fraud_investigation&cid=694&ncid=2043

Link to Salon story, "Sproul Play":
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/21/sproul/

He said, at an RNC National Meeting, that the way to win was to SUPPRESS THE VOTE. That's his plan. We have to GOTV like hell, but he is not going to get away with it this time. We're on to him.

You probably aren't that good unless you are this bad!

I think Bush/Cheney's hired henchmen should go to jail as should those who hired them.