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BREAKING: COREY STEWART BEHIND ANTI-LINGAMFELTER, ANTI-SNYDER ADS

snyder_lingamfelter [1]

Jim Riley is pretty certain.  The clue that clinched it all? [2]  The voiceovers…

The voices could very well be the same ones. They sound like it to me. When I have voiceovers I tend to hire out the talent rather than do it myself, and there are some folks I’ve liked working with so sometimes they end up being used on more than one production. That wouldn’t necessarily mean it’s the same production company, but it would be an indicator since there’s a huge ton of voiceover talent out there and to come up with two videos with the same voice randomly is rather unusual. Especially when the voiceover “talent” is pretty sub-par like this.

However this doesn’t sound like pro voiceover talent to me. This sounds like a low-budget producer goofing around with his own voice to come up with a passable voiceover because he doesn’t have the money for talent. I’ve done this a couple of times, and it’s not unusual when you have a stingy client.

The production methodology in the second two videos is amazingly similar. Using that iris wipe at the opening is a key indicator. An iris wipe is a VERY rarely used technique (because it looks pretty stupid) and to have two different productions use the same technique at the very opening is definitely a production style unique to a very small number of people.

In my opinion these are most certainly done by the same person.

Julian Walker over at the Virginia Pilot has been tracking these for some time now.  The anti-Lingamfelter attack pieces [3] and then the anti-Snyder hit pieces [4] shared the same fonts, same line of attack, same source of intel and oppo research.

Who fed the information is one item we’re back pocketing.  For now.

Who delivered the information?  Riley has the scoop:

I guess that is somewhat ironic given that sources have confirmed to us that the two non-Snyder videos were created by someone named Lee Bond (or maybe it isn’t so coincidental and it is his calling card playing upon his surname.)  Mr. Bond also has a very interesting LinkedIn profile [5].

This weekend, I had the chance to sit down and speak one-on-one with Corey Stewart at Zion Crossroads along I-64 just before he nabbed the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation endorsement.  I asked Corey Stewart point blank — are you behind the attacks on Lingamfelter and Snyder?

I was emphatically told no.

Was I lied to?

UPDATE:  Of course, what tipped the scales on this?  Believe it or not, the Tito Munoz op-ed published here at Bearing Drift did not jive well with members of the Stewart campaign [6]… which sent the rest of Prince William County into overdrive.

Tito the Builder… OF PAIN.

UPDATE x2:  The call is on for the Middle Resolution and Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation to walk back their endorsement of Corey Stewart… this one is building steadily, folks.

UPDATE x3:  MIDDLE RESOLUTION IS ON AN EMERGENCY CON-CALL TONIGHT TO DISCUSS THE CRISIS.  ON THE TABLE: WALKING BACK THE ENDORSEMENT OF STEWART.   DEVELOPING…. 

UPDATE x4:  Greg over at BVBL — a long standing Corey Stewart ally in many a fight — has doubled down in his condemnation of Stewart’s campaign tactics.  What Greg has to say is damning indeed [7].

Getting the Virginia Tea Party Patriots to endanger their 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status by endorsing his candidacy seemed like it would add quite a bit of momentum in the final stretch that targets a pretty important constituency at the convention.   Yes, the VATPP and the federal PAC that seemed to be running that show called it a “vetting process,” whatever that’s supposed to mean, but nobody else is using that meaningless term.  The momentum lasted a few hours until Tea Party patriots in Prince William County [8] and elsewhere [9] in Northern Virginia called foul and ignited a firestorm [10] of criticism [11] about how inconsistent Corey Stewart’s record is with the principles of the Tea Party.  While the mainstream media hasn’t covered the firestorm in much detail yet, the scope and speed at which that conflagration has spread among convention delegates through the new media has been pretty substantial.

. . .

The civil penalties for a violation of $1,000 under VA Code § 24.2-955.3 aren’t much of a deterrent when we’re talking about campaigns that are spending a half million dollars or more in a primary race, but it’s a certain public relations disaster to have a candidate for office willfully violating the law during their campaign.  Even a solid accusation of this sort of misconduct can destroy a campaign and that only gets worse when the campaign denies the allegations and they’re later found to be true.  Cheaters are bad.  Liars are worse.

So far this primary campaign has been remarkably free of negative campaigning, other than these mysterious unlawful attacks on Snyder and Lingamfelter.  That could change a lot in these last two weeks, since if Stewart has opened fire using dirty tactics against other candidates, they’re all now perfectly free to return fire on him in the form of lawful campaign mailings, advertisements and videos without looking like bad guys.  Being on the receiving end of campaign mailers from up to six other candidates all saying “I’m not a crook like this guy, vote for me instead” would be utterly devastating.

So in one week Corey Stewart’s campaign goes from charging on the offense to getting slammed into a decidedly defensive mode.  If in fact Stewart wasn’t behind these attacks, he’s got a very short window to uncover the real culprit behind these attacks and make sure that candidate gets hung out to dry.  If he hides out on this, everyone’s going to assume this is all true.

Greg hits the nail on the head.  Three questions:

(1)  Who engineered the VATPF endorsement?

(2)  Will Middle Resolution do the right thing and walk back their endorsement?

(3)  The short window is closing… and no one is returning phone calls at the moment.

…this is bad, folks.  Rain Man bad.

UPDATE x5:  …and just before this goes away:

coreys_proxies [12]

This scumbag’s IP is 96.47.226.20.

Hounds… release (and yes, Bearing Drift did indeed just go down momentarily — we’re back).

UPDATE x6:  Rumor mill time…

Middle Resolution is going to hold fast for the moment on the Stewart endorsement.  Give this one 24 hours…

Looking for statements tomorrow AM.  Stay tuned, folks…

UPDATE x7:  Michael Fletcher over at Write Side chimes in [13]:

Some nasty stuff about Lieutenant Governor candidates Pete Snyder and Scott Lingamfelter has been circulating around to convention delegates. But, no one seemed to be able to determine the source.

Until now.

Riley has pretty convincing evidence that the trail leads back to one Chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors. See here [14] and here [15].

This is all just ugly. And in the next two weeks may just get even uglier.

UPDATE x8:  Lynn Mitchell is not amused [16]:

As he puts it, he’s 99.9% sure who they came from, noting also that they are both inaccurate and illegal. Heh. If Jim’s on it, they will find out who did it.

Delegate Scott Lingamfelter has also been at the receiving end of some negative campaigning … nice, slick 8″x11″ mailers that say: “VIRGINIA REPUBLICANS have a chance to nominate real conservatives to lead our state. Beware of Scott Lingamfelter” and ends with, “He can put lipstick on a pig, but its [sic] still a pig.” The group taking credit is called American’s [sic] for Growth and Opportunity, Inc, a group unfamiliar to people I’ve talked with. They should have done a little more proof reading and a little less finger-pointing.

When asked on the John Fredericks show this AM, I repeated the same line — consensus view from those following the story is 99.9% sure this is coming from the Stewart camp.  Some comments have tried to divert this to Stimpson… but there’s just no way.  That only makes the line of attack worse.

Jim Riley’s word is gospel in the Virginia blogosphere…

UPDATE x9:  Tom White over at VA Right is nonplussed about the recent news:

Corey Stewart has been a tax raiser and proponent of larger and larger government year after year. That is a deal breaker no matter how well he answered the 32 questions.

Corey Stewart, if elected Lt. Governor, will eventually stab fiscal conservatives in the back just as Bob McDonnell has done.

All the signs are there. While the Lt. Governor is not allowed to vote on budget bills under the Virginia Constitution, there are still shenanigans he can pull to facilitate things. Grease the skids, if you will.

It is no longer enough to elect Republicans (as if that was ever enough). There are pretenders among us and we must use every tool and “spider” sense to make sure we don’t elect another Republican masquerading as a Conservative like McDonnell.

And there are reports that Stewart may be behind some questionable mud slinging that is smearing some of his opponents and identifying themselves as various newly made up entities. I can’t say for sure Stewart is behind these campaigns and as far as I can tell, he is not admitting or denying the accusations.

The Middle Resolution/VATPF endorsement is becoming very hard to digest at the moment…

UPDATE x10:  D.J. McGuire has a pretty good breakdown as to how this plays out [17]:

Last night, Jim Riley [2] presented the case that Stewart was behind a slew of semi-anonymous criticisms of Scott Lingamfelter’s record, and completely anonymous smacks on Pete Snyder’s private life. As Greg L of BVBL [7] notes, the latter is not just bizarre, but also illegal. To top it all off, yet another anonymous source magically appeared to try dumping it all on Susan Stimpson (Shaun Kenney [18], who saw through that like it was Saran Wrap). It’s getting so bad that Mike over at Write Side [13] has decided to skip Richmond’s convention entirely.

Still, even as one tries to avert the eyes from a campaign flying itself into a mountain, there is a black box to recover, and things to analyze in the wreckage. What I find interesting is the different nature of the missives. The stuff used against Lingamfelter was fairly accurate – based on actual votes and donation records – and had an “organization” behind it. In other words, the i’s were dotted and t’s crossed.

Short version?  Stewart has smashed into the mountain, Snyder and Stimpson are on the upswing, Lingamfelter hobbles a bit, the others are watching from the sidelines.