Bill Donahue attacked Kerry campaign hire, too. Kerry fought back

[beachmom]

Wow. Somebody just left this comment for me, and we find out that Kerry defended his staffer, and did not fire her, nor was he wishy washy about it (the whole first part is written by Bill Donohue, so I have no idea if she was "gagged" or if they were "in panic"):

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2007/2/13/18310/1890/82#c82

Bill Donohue's recent interventions in the Edwards campaign reminded me of what happened in 2004 between Donohue, Kerry and Mara Vanderslice. Donohue writes about it in his 2004 report:

"Once we learned that the Kerry campaign had hired Mara Vanderslice as its Director of Religious Outreach, we immediately inquired about her. What we found about the 29 year-old was startling, so much so that we couldn't wait to tell everyone else.

Vanderslice was raised without any faith and didn't become an evangelical Christian until she attended Earlham College, a Quaker school known for its pacifism. When in college, she was active in the Earlham Socialist Alliance, a group that supports the convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal and openly embraces Marxism-Leninism. After graduating, Mara spoke at rallies held by ACT-UP, the anti-Catholic group that disrupted Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989 by spitting the Eucharist on the floor. In 2000, she practiced civil disobedience when she took to the streets of Seattle in a protest against the World Trade Organization. In 2002, she tried to shut down Washington, D.C. in a protest against the IMF and the World Bank.

As I said of Vanderslice in our news release of June 14, "Her resume is that of a person looking for a job working for Fidel Castro, not John Kerry." I then added, "Just wait until Catholics and Protestants learn who this lady really is."

That's when everything unraveled. As Julia Duin of the Washington Times wrote, the Kerry campaign was in a "panic mode" over Vanderslice's role. So what did they elect to do? They gagged her: she was strictly forbidden from speaking to the media. Had they fired her, at least she could have kept her dignity. But instead, they kept her on the payroll in an outreach position while denying her the right to reach out to anyone.

We couldn't believe what a blunder this was. Just ask yourself, would the Kerry campaign hire an anti-gay to conduct outreach efforts with the gay community? It would never happen. But people of faith were not exactly a priority group for the Kerry camp, so they never really bothered to cultivate them."

Vanderslice reflected on this after the 2004 election:

"Someone had forwarded to me when the Catholic League put their release out. I remember the title said, "John Kerry's Religious Outreach Director Is a Real Gem." Naively, I actually thought maybe it was going to be someone saying nice things about what we were doing. But, you know, I didn't take it personally. I think the religious Right would have attacked anyone who signed up for this responsibility, for this position.

They believe that this is their territory, and they would have attacked anyone in the party that was stepping out to bring religious people into the party. It just showed how threatened they would be if the Democrats really started to make this a priority."

[beachmom]

1. In case you hadn't read it yet -- now both bloggers have resigned

from the Edwards campaign, because they were insideously harassed by the Right Wing group. This just strikes me as very wrong and very scary.

[mloutre]

6. Amanda and Melissa are good people, and they didn't deserve this.

But if we're going to talk about them here, at least we should link to where they talk about it themselves:

http://www.pandagon.net

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2007/02/announcement.html

[beachmom]

7. Thanks for the links, Mloutre :) n/t

[PresidentObama]

2. The Edwards camp has GOT to be better prepared for this BS.

If the religious right comes out to play, and provoke they have to fight back. Not back down, and look weak. John Edwards should take note what Kerry did in 04'

[PresidentObama]

3. self delete.

[karynnj]

4. Here's a December 2006 NYT article mentioning

Vanderslice called "Consultant Helps Democrats Embrace Faith, and Some in Party Are Not Pleased".


"As Democrats turn toward the 2008 presidential race, a novice evangelical political operative is emerging as a rising star in the party, drawing both applause and alarm for her courtship of theological conservatives in the midterm elections.

Party strategists and nonpartisan pollsters credit the operative, Mara Vanderslice, and her 2-year-old consulting firm, Common Good Strategies, with helping a handful of Democratic candidates make deep inroads among white evangelical and churchgoing Roman Catholic voters in Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Exit polls show that Ms. Vanderslice's candidates did 10 percentage points or so better than Democrats nationally among those voters, who make up about a third of the electorate. As a group, Democrats did little better among those voters than Senator John Kerry's campaign did in 2004.
<snip>

Rerrring to Donahue's charges,the article says:
"Ms. Vanderslice wanted to fight back. She argued that the Kerry campaign should rebut the charges as part of a broader articulation of the Democrats' religious convictions. But she was overruled by other advisers, who argued that doing so would inflame conservatives while entrapping Mr. Kerry in debates about homosexuality and abortion, said the Rev. Robert F. Drinan, 86, a liberal priest and former congressman who was an adviser to Mr. Kerry. ''She was a little bit overzealous,'' Father Drinan said. "


http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30616FA35550C758EDDAB0994DE404482

The name had sounded familiar. I somehow think that Drinan was a better choice as a religious adviser and that he was a wee bit closer to the Senator. Also, to expect the campaign to defend her seems like missplaced priorities. In her case, the charges are far more guilt by association rather than any of her own actions or comments - which is likely why the charges didn't hold up in 2004.
It looks like Kerry's decision to keep her quiet ended up protecting her - even though it's clear that she didn't get it.

It is interesting that the article says that she had wanted Kerry to speak more about religion. He obviously took her advise in preparation for 2008. It may have been that that was not something that could be done in the heat of the 2004 campaign - even had Kerry himself bought into the idea.

[beachmom]

5. Thanks for the additional info. I still think he handled it really well,

and didn't back down to the Right, since he kept her on, just positioning her in the grassroots support.

I actually am not necessarily criticizing Edwards in this case -- just wanted to point out to folks that the history shows a very competent Kerry campaign dealing with the problem swiftly while sticking to their guns that this woman was going to stay on their team.

[karynnj]

8. I agree with you

The campaign avoided it becoming a huge issue - which was the most important thing. Even though I read the article last December, I didn't even pick up that it could have been a major PR problem.

Although it sounds like she wanted to make it a fight, not doing so protected the candidate and very likely protected her viability to have the company and jobs she had in 2006. It sounds like it was easier to deal with her as she was a young person who went through a lot of phases before being born again and becoming an evangelical. This is different than having someone who still believes the things the Edwards bloggers wrote.

The fact that Edwards initially fired then, then rehired then, then they left is not as competent as Kerry's team. (I still think in their case they likely shouldn't have been hired.)

[whometense]

9. I agree -

it was really dumb to hire them without knowing that they were

a) going to keep blogging and
b) going to blog the same way they always have

Peter Daou went with the Clinton campaign, but gave up most of his blogging when he did - and even as a full-time bogger he was much more measured and infinitely less incendiary. I don't understand why the campaign didn't ask them to take a leave of absence - or why they didn't volunteer to do so on their own. It doesn't inspire a lot of faith in their planning.

This is obviously mainly uncharted territory, but it's a fact of the blogosphere that what makes a person an interesting blogger is exactly what might make them not a good campaign employee.

[ginnyinWI]

10. it is sad to think that even staffers must be vetted first.

I was reading the Pandagon site earlier; it's shocking to see what professed "Christians" will write when they have the anonymity of the internet. Seemed mostly to be about males fearing liberated women, the cowards!

[Dr Ron]

11. Edwards did handle this poorly

I don't think he fired and then rehired them. I believe that the reports saying Edwards fired them were incorrect.

Beyond that the campaign did handle this poorly as I discussed in this post:

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=1022

"I still think in their case they likely shouldn't have been hired."

I certainly would have had reservations about hiring them for work on a political campaign blog considering their writing style. That's not to criticize this from the perspective of a personal blog, but a campaign blog is totally different.

In hiring them Edwards had to balance the benefits of having them as opposed to the controversy which their writings would inevitably result in. I figure there are arguments both ways, but if they were going to hire them they should have anticipated and been prepared for this attack. They clearly didn't do their homework on this one.

Considering the manner in which Edwards has insinuated he could have done a better job running than Kerry, he isn't off to a great start on this one.

[kerrygoddess]

12. Most likely

It was not Edwards who hired them. A decision was probably made by upper staff or as Blog PI points out, it was probably Matt Gross who did the hiring and then all hell broke loose - http://www.blogpi.net/will-matt-gross-resign-too

Regardless the voracity of the attacks against them from the wingnuts is beyond vile and disgusting.

[karynnj]

13. True - but many decisions that Kerry himself is blamed for

were his staff's as well - and that was in the heat of real general election.

[MBS]

14. very good point

it was well into the general election before Maria Vanderslice came on board. Se was on the Kerry campaign, but I remember her as more of a Dem party appointee than a Kerry-specific person.

[karynnj]

15. It actually sounds like the Kerry people had to "manage"

the Dem party people. It sounds like Father Drinan was able to keep her from creating a problem. This was a good example where Kerry had someone (on religion) who understood him completely and who in addition to advising him was able to vouch for Kerry being who he said he was. The Dem party person seems to be smart, but it sounds like she didn't have a clue of who Kerry was - and would have recommeded the same for any Democrat.

[MBS]

16. YES, exactly right.

I agree that the Dem part of the operation didn't understand who Kerry was, ESPECIALLY on religion. And Kerry went way back with Fr. Drinan, on basically the same page with respect to both politics AND religion. I was particularly struck by this history and kindred outlook at Fr. Drinan's funeral. (I still am planning to write that up, but it's been a hard week: new job, and now I've sprained my ankle. . : ( ). But this weekend, for sure. . )

[karynnj]

17. I look forward to reading it

Sorry to hear about the ankle - hope it's feeling better soon. I liked that in 2004, Fr Drinan simply unequivocally called Kerry a "very good person", echoing him calling Kerry a "very good Kid" in the press in 1970 (per Tour of Duty). These words meant a lot coming from a Jesuit Priest who knew him as well as he did.

[kerrygoddess]

18. Well of course the candidate

is always the one who gets blamed. Just as Edwards was here. A candidate is like a CEO of a major corporation, they tend not to be involved with all staff hiring decsions.

[Dr Ron]

19. True, possibly not Edwards personally

In many of my comments on Edwards and this I am really using "Edwards" to refer to his campaign with the feeling that Edwards is ultimately responsible for what is done in his name. He personally may or may not have had anything to do with their hiring.

Also agree that, even though I find fault with how the campaign handled this, I am far more repulsed by the attacks on them.

[kerrygoddess]

20. It's really been over the top...

the attacks - but it's also part and parcel of the internet. Sadly.