Laura Clawson, a post-doctoral fellow at Dartmouth, uncovered last Thursday that a House of Representatives staff member had made misleading posts on liberal blogs in an attempt to deter New Hampshire Democrats from working on the campaign of Democratic congressional candidate Paul Hodes '72.
Four days later, Tad Furtado, policy director to Rep. Charlie Bass '74 (R-N.H.), resigned after admitting to making the posts under the pseudonyms "IndyNH" and "IndieNH."
In his posts on Blue Granite, the blog operated by Clawson, Furtado pretended to be a Hodes supporter. He continually remarked on Bass' lead in polls that track the race for New Hampshire's second congressional district and noted the likelihood of a Bass victory in November.
Furtado suggested that New Hampshire Democrats focus their resources on more competitive races in New York or Connecticut and even offered a joint bus trip for Democrats to help one of these campaigns.
Clawson first became suspicious of the posts made by "IndyNH" and "IndieNH" after the poster dismissed a report that Hodes and Bass were tied in the polls.
"Every independent poll has almost exactly the same numbers while only our internal numbers have this as a close race," IndyNH wrote in one post. "Let's admit the truth: If the election were tomorrow Charlie Bass would win by 20 + points. I hate it, but it is true. The good news is that the election is not tomorrow."
Clawson and Michael Caulfield, who runs the NH-02 Progressive blog where Furtado also made posts, worked together to trace the poster's IP address. They found that the comments came from within the House of Representatives. Clawson and Caulfield also discovered that the poster researched Hodes' positions on a variety of issues including taxes and gay marriage leading them to believe the poster was someone from within Bass' offices.
After her research, Clawson posted that she was mistrustful of IndyNH from the beginning.
"He loves Paul Hodes, but only shows up to comment about how sad it is that Charlie Bass is such a strong candidate that Paul will have trouble defeating him." She then disclosed her information regarding his IP address and the likelihood that he was a Bass staffer. The posts from IndyNH immediately stopped and have since been removed from the two blogs.
Furtado, who made the posts, was described by those in Bass' Concord office as one of the congressman's most trusted staffers with a bright future.
"There was no good reason for this, just a serious lapse of judgment, and the staffer will be appropriately disciplined," said John Billings, a spokesperson for Bass.
For his part, Bass said in a written statement that he had "referred this matter to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct for their review."
A memo circulated through Bass' office reiterated that Furtado's actions were not condoned by the congressman.
"Posting messages to blogs or other web sites from government computers is a violation of office policy. Congressman Bass will not tolerate this sort of activity in his office," the message read.
Reid Cherlin, a spokesperson for Hodes, also condemned the staffer's actions as "at best a dirty trick and at worst a serious offense." They also said that it indicated the strength of their campaign that a staffer went to such great lengths to mislead New Hampshire voters.
Related incidents occurred recently regarding Capitol Hill aides who altered Wikipedia entries about their Congressmen. Most political Wikipedia entries now contain a disclaimer that the information is disputed and offer other websites for the interested reader.
