Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.

 

25 October 2014

Stanford/Dartmouth Mailergate wrap-up

Sen. Jon Tester kicked open some doors Thursday and Friday (read his scathing letter to the presidents of Stanford and Dartmouth), and more information about the bogus voters guide sent to Montanans came tumbling out. At the Associate Press, Matt Voltz kept unearthing information. At the Lee state bureau, Mike Dennison wrote a story on Tester’s involvement. And that’s not all. Below, some of what we’ve learned.

Mailergate’s funders

Two-hundred-fifty-thousand dollars of the funding came from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the rest from a fund, donors still unknown, at Stanford.

New Hampshire Public Radio publishes image of NH mailer

These mailers did not bear the state seal of New Hampshire. Dartmouth has apologized, but like Stanford, does not have a time machine to undo the damage the researchers did. So the gong still rings in the minds of the voters.

MT Secretary of State accuses researchers of breaking laws

McCulloch filed a complaint with Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices, reports Voltz, alleging violations of three campaign and one non-campaign laws:

The three campaign laws the mailers are accused of violating include:

  • A ban on “fraudulent contrivance” that could cause a person to vote a certain way.
  • A prohibition on the dissemination of information that gives incorrect or misleading election procedures.
  • A requirement that a person or group engaging in political activity register with the state.

McCulloch also alleges violation of a fourth law prohibiting the impersonation of a public servant.

A federal investigation may examine whether postal laws were violated.

Two of the Stanford researchers are Hoover Institute fellows

Montana Cowgirl made this discovery, building on information provided by Greg Strandberg at his blog. The Hoover Institute is an independent institution on Stanford’s campus that is deeply conservative. Whether the researchers’ association with Hoover is material to Mailergate remains to be determined, but it should not go unnoticed. Strandberg, incidentally, has an excellent and detailed review of this sordid saga. And Cowgirl has the names and email addresses of the President and big kahunas at Stanford.

Mailers begin appearing in California

According to my source, mailers began appearing in Truckee, CA, yesterday. I’m trying to obtain a copy. A key question: do these mailers use the seal of the State of California?

Mailergate researchers under fire from fellow political scientists

Yesterday, Montana State University political scientist David Parker (whose new book on the 2012 Tester-Rehberg-Cox senate race, Battle for the Big Sky, is now available), explained on television how the researchers erred. And writing in The New West, a political science blog, Menlo College poly sci professor Melissa Michelson, discussed the ethics of the experiment in a post titled Messing With Montana: Get-out-the-Vote Experiment Raises Ethics Questions. In addition to doing an unknown amount of political damage in Montana, Mailergate has besmirched the reputation of the political science profession and will adversely affect other researchers.

Please don’s conflate Mailergate with legitimate research

Mailergate used information from research that correlated the alleged political leanings of judicial candidates with campaign contributions to partisan politicians. That research is not at issue here. But the application of it is.

Elections are not the best way of choosing judges

Ostensibly, officially, elections for justices of Montana’s supreme court are nonpartisan. Unofficially, they are. Worse, the judicial candidates’ campaigns are funded by contributions from lawyers who will be trying cases before the courts to which the candidates seek election. It’s corrupt, the functional equivalent of buying judges. There’s no perfect way of choosing judges, but gubernatorial appointments from a list compiled by a judicial commission, and confirmation by the legislature, makes much more sense.

Was Mailergate botched research or a pro-Vandyke plot?

For me, that question is still open. I’m inclined to think, and want to believe, that it was a poorly conceived project that blew up in the researchers’s faces. But when I first read the mailer, I concluded it was an attempt to tar Mike Wheat as someone too liberal for Montana. And I still can’t wrap my head around the notion that researchers smart enough to be on the faculties at Stanford and Dartmouth could do something so stupid and irresponsible. My head tells me they might have had no evil intent, but my gut tells me they probably did. The only thing of which I’m sure is that they violated the Prime Directive, and would do so again if given the chance.

Note to readers providing feedback

I’ve received a lot of emails on this story, all but one civil. The uncivil email — from an author known to both me and many — and titled “I call bullshit,” began with this command: “You will not disseminate this.” That kind of authoritarian nonsense is not enforceable, of course. Off-the-record requires prior mutual consent. I’ve already disseminated it, but I haven’t yet decided whether to publish it here. So, just a reminder, folks: everything is on the record. If you want it off the record, don’t say it.