Campaign Manager or Campaign Distraction?- UPDATE

It's a big mistake to keep this girl as the Campaign Manager at this point. Republicans aren't going to drop this issue and I don't see anything great the campaign is doing that makes this distraction worth the trade off.

UPDATE:  The campaign is challenging the video on Youtube, claiming the five second clip of Jeanette (or the picture of the used condom in the toilet) did not constitute fair use.  That's total insanity, so I have unloaded the video here for you to see and decide for yourself.

Download Jeanette-Rishell-Campaign-Manager-Insanity

Comments

[mother]

You should be ashamed of yourself for repeating this muck, Benjamin.

[Dan]

I'd like to say that I believe that campaign managers should be off-limits for personal attacks -- However, political consultants and managers have been playing the politics of personal destruction for years -- all while hiding behind the names of their candidates.
It's very easy to lob hand-grenades at an opponent if you are a consultant/ manager because the public blames all PR backfires on the candidate, not the man behind the campaign. This is precisely why campaigns have gotten so dirty lately.
For instance, do you think that Chris LaCivita would have been so brazen with the Swift Boat Veteran attacks had the name of the PAC been "Chris LaCivita for Truth" instead of "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?" Hell no!
If you're going to jump into the political arena (manager, candidate, consultant, 527s, etc) you better be ready to catch a few hand grenades -- and it's a lot harder to catch 'em than to throw 'em!

[jotb]

that wallpaper is hideous

[Kelly]

I dont think we have any right attacking a campaign manager. She is off-limits! That being said, I do think that this girl could have at least made her facebook page private. She could also use a little bit of common sense but lay off. Now we are attacking campaign managers, whats next? Volunteers?
This is the crap that makes people despise politics!

[Sumatra]

I agree with "mother" in the first comment.

This is vicious and slanderous. Please, don't get down in the muck!

[EricByler]

Ben, FYI general consensus around Manassas is that this distraction is hurting Miller more than Rishell. People who were previously favorable to Miller are now questioning whether or not it was his choice to employ Letiecq in this way. Many are asking Miller to try to contain Letiecq. Women in particular seem to be upset by the attacks.

[GOPHokie]

I am somewhat out of the loop on this, but is BVBL on payroll for Jackson Miller?
I agree with Kelly that the girl should have blocks on her facebook page, but its still sad that campaign managers are now being brought into the fray. Its got to tough these days to go through a comprehensive process of interviewing staffers about each and every nook and cranny of their lives.

[Bull Run]

Eric, you might be on to something. Imagine that, women pissed off. I wonder why??!! Could it be that Le Creep has decided to destroy yet another person?

Actually, he has become rather irrelevant in Pr. Wm. Co. The bad-boy antics just wore thin. He didn't know when to quit.

[Sabato's left toe]

"Campaign managers off limits"????

Since when?

they are reflective of the candidate. If a candidate hires an unorganized nit-wit, then it reflects of the candidates ability to handle legislative tasks. Campaign Managers, consultants, pollsters have all been fair game for NLS for many, many years. If it weren't for talking about Campaign managers, no one would know what a fool Brian Kirwin was, and is! OK, so everyone would know about Kirwin, but the point is still valid.

[4:04]

WOMAN not GIRL, Ben. Don't be a jerk.

[Sam]

This is amongst the dumber non-issues I've ever seen. I completely agree that she was stupid not to make her facebook private, and she has certainly demonstrated some poor taste.

That being said, if Miller's going to go around calling people who've hooked up while drunk and/or watched porn "perverts," he might lose about 80% of his own base....

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

Any political professional should know better than to have that kind of stuff out there on their Facebook page or under their name anywhere. I can't tell you have many times we've had workshops and been lectured on the perils of social networking in law school.

Campaign staff are as much a target as the candidate. I've never heard anyone ever claim otherwise. How many times did Bush get attacked for Karl Rove?

[Elena]

notlarry,

Some people are working from the premise what Greg has posted is based in reality. He has manufactured that this young woman is doing something sexual on the bull. He has manufactured that a silly picture of a contraceptive device floating in a toilet means anything other than a weird picture. To allow Greg to impact this woman's career based on false sexual innuendo's is falling prey to the worst kind of politics.

[DanielK]

You know, for a second before seeing who produced it I thought this came from someone credible. Once I saw who produced it I wanted to flush that ad down the toilet! That racist bastard has enough enemies in that area that this might actually help Rischell's campaign more than it'll hurt!

[History Lesson]

Campaign managers certainly are fair game. Let's consider an example from two years ago. A certain person to whom Ben had referred as "the best campaign manager" was working for a Democratic candidate for Delegate. Alas, this person (along with Ben) went public with the concept that pedophilia is somehow funny when used to attack political opponents. This did become an issue, and the Democratic candidate lost.

Isn't that right, Mrs. Stanley?

[Freedom Fighter]

I think this is awesome! It should teach every campaign manager a lesson! First make your facebook private and second don't try to get Weapons of Ass Destruction put in your college library....? Wait what?

[change]

Campaign managers should not be fair game, but the children of republicans should be hounded day and night.

Ahh the consistency of the radical liberals.

[Greg L]

Jeanette Rishell's campaign has made a copyright infringement claim in regards to this video. This is going to be FUN. Let's take this to court!

http://www.bvbl.net/index.php/2009/07/29/jeanette-rishell-tries-to-silence-critics/

[EricByler]

Greg, FYI: YouTube disables a video when there is a dispute about copyright. (It's not the same thing as a court battle.) If they look into it and find that you are covered under fair use, they will reenable the video.

The only problem is if you have multiple copyright infringements, they could decide to delete your whole channel.

[Kevin]

Yeah this will be as much fun as Greg being paddled by Bruce Lee's family. Hence from "lee" to "li".

Who's going to raise your funds for lawyers this time?

Wait a second I don't want to say anything else. Greg might take me to court too.

[Bull Run]

Now wouldn't that be a shame. All that work down the tubes. One day the bullying will catch up with Greg.

[VA Blogger]

Wait, their campaign is actually responding to and taking action based on that video?

You might as well call it for Jackson Miller right now.

[Think Real]

"FYI general consensus around Manassas is that this distraction is hurting Miller more than Rishell."

Nice try Eric. What, you standing by the former site of the Liberty wall polling people as they walk by? Or is the general consensus of the posters at the anti site? Do you hear the shouts all the way in Culpeper? Truth is, most folks don't read the blogs, and those that do are firmly in one camp or another.

The Miller campaign has nothing to do with this. Greg has been targeting Rishell for years. Greg is his own man, a blogger first, and a politico second.

[The Jaded JD]

First off, let's say it was tactically unwise, personally and politically, to give this issue additional life in the blogosphere. Most real people don't follow blogs and a good number of those who do don't consider Greg Letiecq credible, and, of the number who do consider Letiecq credible, how many were going to ever vote for Rishell anyway? (Similarly, I can understand that the individual involved may want her information removed from the Internet, but that battle should have been left for after Election Day, as a tactical matter, because doing anything before then was destined only to draw more attention.)

Beyond that, the claims that Rishell or YouTube is infringing on First Amendment speech are silly because the First Amendment protects speech from government, not private, action.

I think that on copyright grounds, the use of the material in the video is almost certainly fair use. Rishell would have lost in court had she brought this as a civil action. But she didn't; she didn't have to--all she had to do is complain to YouTube, which took the video down. YouTube warns that there could be liability for a false report of copyright infringement, but the falsely accused infringer has to prove damages to recover. I think that's going to be fairly difficult here.

A stronger ground for having YouTube remove the video may have been YouTube's policy of removing material that violates privacy rights, particularly if the information were not in the public domain. Yes, a Facebook page is a webpage but if the information provided in Letiecq's video was available only to "friends only" and Letiecq is not among her friends, there's a plausible claim that her privacy rights were violated. (I want to be clear that I don't mean she could sue Letiecq (or whoever gave the material to Letiecq) for violating them; I mean she can plausibly claim to YouTube that she had the privacy rights and that Letiecq's acquisition of the images and other content violated them, and that the video should be removed from YouTube on that ground.)

But even that would have been tactically unwise, because Letiecq made his video himself, likely possesses an original, likely could distribute it through other means, and likely would make much hay from the attempt to suppress it--just as he has done here.

[Brian W. Schoeneman]

I still don't understand why anyone here is arguing that campaign staff are off limits when it comes to criticizing a candidate. Who you choose to work for you represents you and anyone in this business understands that. Some don't care. Some do.

Given the attacks Democrats have made on campaign staff (Karl Rove), spouses (Bill Clinton) and children (Bristol and Trig Palin) of candidates, I think the rules both sides have agreed to regarding these kind of things are pretty clear - anything is fair game, but you use it at your own risk.

If this blows up, then it will have been a bad move. But from what I've seen, this candidate wasn't that credible in the first place.

[Bull Run]

What ever happened to common decency? Why would a middle aged man basically call someone's campaign manager a slut?

Why does anyone think that is acceptable behavior?

[New Balance Shoes]

With a gust of wind, To my greetings, With a moonlight, reflects my prayer, With a few dewdrops, soak my sincere, With a blessing, connect you my friendship, Wish friends every day happy!

[Office 2010]

Had been thinking about Lindsey's new vibram fivefingers ever since she posted about them on this blog. When she first sent me a photo of these bizarre looking vibram five,I just laughed at their vibram fivefingers ridiculousness, thinking 'no way I'll ever put those things on my five finger feet! But alas, once I saw them and read about them, I just couldn't stop thinking about them! I had to try them for myself. Last week I went to Blue five fingers Ridge Mountain Sports in Charlottesville,

[coach outlet]

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[keylogger Mac]

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