By Jake Wagman
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
October 27, 2010
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/political-fix/article_fbe32c44-e1f1-11df-8799-00127992bc8b.html
 |
| Ed Martin, left, and Russ Carnahan |
Carnahan's campaign said a website attacking his Republican opponent was a case of consultants gone wild.
Even so, spending records show the campaign paid a Colorado opposition research firm linked to the site about $2,000 days before the site was created.
The Carnahan campaign confirms that they paid for research exploring Ed Martin's time working for the Archdiocese, but said they never authorized the firm to put the information online.
That decision, the campaign says, was made by the researchers themselves, who apparently felt so strongly about the issue, they launched their own site, independent of the campaign.
Martin has slammed the site as a "foul assault," and equated it to "sordid McCarthyism."
It would be highly unusual for an opposition research firm to go against the wishes of a client and establish their own site targeting a candidate. That is, though, exactly what the Carnahan campaign says happened.
"Our campaign had nothing to do with posting this website," the Carnahan campaign said in a statement. "As we have previously stated: the campaign engaged a firm for research on Martin's record. After our relationship with that firm ended, the researchers went ahead and created this website on their own. They did so without our authorization, encouragement or knowledge."
However, the campaign has not discouraged questions about the allegations contained in the website.
"We have been absolutely transparent about all of this," the Carnahan campaign statement said. "Ed Martin, on the other hand, has refused to answer questions about what he knew and when."
The site, TheRealEdMartin.com, seeks to tie Martin, former head of the Human Rights office for the St. Louis Archdiocese, to priest abuse.
For "evidence," the site provides a nebulous collection of videos and news clippings, including Martin's 2003 wedding announcement in the New York Times and video of a victim of priest abuse who doesn't mention Martin at all.
The site lists as its authors Michael Corwin, a New Mexico private investigator, and Jeannine Dillon, who says she's a former producer for ABC and NBC news. The site does not have any of the typical "paid for by" campaign disclaimers.
"This is not a smear campaign against candidate Ed Martin," the site says, but a "three month investigation" into Martin.
Still, the creators of the site were on the Carnahan campaign payroll. In July, Dillon incorporated a firm in Colorado, Veritas Research. Ten days later, Carnahan's campaign paid Veritas $4,500. On Sept. 27, Carnahan paid Veritas an additional $1,995.
Two days later, according to Internet registration records, TheRealEdMartin.com page was created.
Veritas' ties to Dillon were, initially, impossible to track because the Carnahan campaign put the wrong address on their spending reports. An amended report was filed Tuesday.
(As the 24thState.com reports, the address listed on the original report belonged to another Veritas Research, a now defunct institute at the University of Arizona dedicated to studying post-death consciousness)
Dillon's husband, Victor Arango, who is also listed in corporation papers as an official with Veritas, did not respond to an email asking about the site.
Asked about the payments from the Carnahan campaign in a brief interview Tuesday, Arango said "it's all about the timing."
Corwin, who says he worked with Dillon on an award-winning Dateline NBC piece, acknowledged getting paid by a media firm hired by the Carnahan campaign.
But Corwin said he established the Martin website on his own after it was rejected by the Carnahan campaign.
In an interview, Corwin said the Carnahan campaign feared it could "jeopardize the Catholic vote."
"The campaign did not authorize it, they did not pay for it," Corwin said of the site. "We did it."
In a follow-up email, Corwin offered further explanation:
"Imagine as a free lance journalist you spend months working on a piece that involves a matter of utmost public interest. You take it to the editor, he looks at the content and says, nope, not going to run it. He tells you to shelve it. Would you shelve it? Or would you start your own blog and release it to the public since it is important that the public know?"
Martin has called on Carnahan to denounce the webpage -- which the incumbent Democrat has not done yet -- and has denied the allegations contained in the site, which focus on Martin's involvement in a church advisory body called the Curia.
"I worked for the Catholic Church doing education and advocacy about charity and service to our community," Martin said in a statement. "I had zero involvement or authority on the adjudication or disposition of those accused of crimes or wrongdoing."
Dragging the issue of pastoral abuse into the political arena, Martin said, is a "heartbreaking tactic."
"This is not being done to pursue justice, healing or reckoning," Martin said. "It is a vulgar attempt to maintain power by an unpopular politician."
jwagman@post-dispatch.com or 314-340-8628
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.