The counter-postcard: Today I (and presumably many others) received a postcard from the real Carnahan campaign (fully identified with appropriate disclaimers) charging "ILLEGAL 'Smear Sheets' against Russ distributed by Joan Barry, Jeff Smith and their associates have been reported to the Federal Election Commission. www.fee.gov [sic]" (Note: The cited web site does not exist; it was evidently a typo intended to refer to www.fec.gov)

Can Russ prove his charges? He is very specific about two identified candidates. Can he back it up? Or is he simply complying with the law that could get him in trouble (the disclaimer rule) while playing it fast and loose with libel? (It's virtually impossible for a public official or a "public figure" (including a candidate) to win a libel suit because of First Amendment restrictions.)

FYI: We have an Eric here - one of Jeff's childhood friends in from CA to help. That was who our volunteer believed he was taking the message for. We had nothing to do with any of this mess and just want to continue running a positive campaign based on Jeff's progressive message.

So, what about the postcard... now? :)

Dave, great work!

Do we know the 25,000 pieces were targeted to FREQUENT voters? If they shelled out $7000 for the mailing, it wouldn't take much more to get a list of current voters.

Congratulations on the scoop!

Chris

probably frequent voters in St. Louis County and City. I called my grandmother in Ste. Genevieve county who hasn't missed a vote in forever and she didn't get it.

The leads I have are not of the type that I trust potentially damaging someone's career or, for that matter life by making them public. There may be some connections to some folks tenuously tied to Democratic politics to this Lillard guy, but nothing I feel comfortable saying for sure.

I believe a subpeona is necessary to clear it up and so it'll be a long time. Carnahan has two complaints against Barry and Jeff. One is on the postcard which is the Eric thing. Having been around the Jeff Smith Campaign, I know of no such person and neither did volunteers and workers.

I guess, it could have still come from someone tied to Jeff, but not in anyway resembling how Carnahan's people claim. My sense is that it didn't though one can never rule out some random connection to Lillard that I can't figure out.

My sense, and I have no specific evidence of this, is that Russ has an enemy somewhere from his time in the Lege--perhaps tied to the MHDCC time. That the MIssouri Ethics Commission issued the suit just days before his primary tells me this was probably orchestrated by someone with inside knowledge of how the Commission worked and the MHDCC. I have no specific evidence the two are connected, but it seems at least plausible.

I'm obviously a Jeff partisan, but I do find it weird that one candidate is screaming about this, but he himself has a very credible allegation against him with the Missouri Ethics Commission. The oxygen being taken up by the postcard is letting that fall. That's okay, as far as I'm concerned because it probably matters more at this point for the campaigns to just reach out to their voters.

The cost may be lower though--the web site seems to indicate such a mailing would be under $1500 though that certainly wouldn't include any mailing list which is often the expensive part of a mailing.

There may also be a Constitutional issue if it was just one person who did the whole deal uncoordinated. As far as I'm aware the issue hasn't been tested specifically to the current law, but in general, the right to publish and distribute information even anonymously is protected speech. That said, I doubt it was an individual, though I wouldn't rule out it being some folks who have a problem with Russ, but who may not be tied to a specific campaign.

Two thoughts:

1) My money is on the candidate no one has yet suspected -- Bill Federer. a) He's a wingnut, just crazy enough to think the postcard was a good idea (weaken Carnahan, the candidate he likely believed was going to win, or try to surround the non-Carnahan candidate with ethical questions). b) I distinctly remember that while canvassing for the Missouri Democratic Party in 2000 (or 2002) I came across numerous literature pieces for a Republican candidate. The literature, dropped at the door of prospective voters, depicted an individual lounging on the beach and criticized a Democrat as having taken multiple foreign trips on taxpayer money. The more I look at the postcard, the more similarities I see with my memory of that literature piece. (As for where it was dropped, it was in a white neighborhood, perhaps as an anti Joan Bray piece).

2) I suspect there is enough information out there to nail whoever mailed the postcard. ACC's research brought forth several names -- Eric Lillard (a web designer), Benjy Levin (a real estate agent), and Gereen and Mark Lamartina (of Environmental Ironworks). My guess is that one of these four folks, or Advanced Media itself, is tied o a present or past campaign or elected official. If there was a better way to search through campaign finance reports, we'd get to the bottom of this.

There are two shameful things about this postcard incident:

1. Because of the nature of the delivery.... the entire issue of Russ's poor record in the legislature has been obscured.

2. Russ has been able to slander the two largest threats to his election (Jeff and Joan) without any accountablity in the media (Dave's detailed account of the absurdity of Russ's FEC complaint being the rare exception).

I am MOSTLY joking... but maybe Russ sent it himself as a way to drag Jeff and Joan into the mud. I know less about Joan's campaign but I am so proud of the way Jeff has engaged the voters by making himself available for substantive policy exchanges at coffees and town halls throughout the district. Russ couldn't last 5 minutes in these settings but Jeff can go on for hours. By bringing Jeff into the mud I fear that Russ is obscuring all that Jeff has acomplished.

I agree that all of the candidates need to focus on getting their positive message out for the next few days. Russ seems to be continuing to stay on the attack. I hope the others can avoid getting sucked down into the mud with him.

I've been thinking about the distinct possibility that Russ sent the now infamous postcard. Looking at the facts that we do know, its clear that this was sent around the time of the Smith-Barry press conference highlighting Russ' lackluster attendance record. Its likely that Russ knew his attendance record would be an issue in the closing days of a close race. He also knew that to win, he had to smear Smith and Barry. But how? Did he have dirt on them? Perhaps not. That said, why not send out a vicious postcard framing the two possible winners. That way, immediate allegations would be directed toward the two candidates with the most momentum at the time. This might seem backward, but think about it. Lots of would-be voters are clueless as to the fact that a member of the Carnahan family is even running for congress. However, once aware of the fact, an uneducated voter might show up at the polls and vote just to show support for a member of the Carnahan family...especially one who has been dragged through the mud by his opponents. What else do we know? Well for one, its likely that the mailing was orchestrated by a campaign supporter-somebody loosely related to one of the organizations, but not directly a part of it. Of all the 3CD candidates, Russ is probably the only person in this race who had the clout (not to mention the need) to ask such a favor. Jeff and Joan were doing fine without the postcard. Conventional wisdom says that they should not have risked such a drastic measure; rather, they should have been concentrating on getting out their bases of support without giving Carnahan more exposure. What motive did Barry and Smith really have in taking this chance? They got their point across in the press conference. That same conference gave Carnahan the opening he needed to go negative-against himself, and inturn against the two candidates that threatened him.

The PD has stooped to a new low in its editorial this morning regarding the postcards. While they were right on target by saying that Russ Carnahan's innuendo in his latest mailer to voters is gross.... they accomplished Russ's dirty work by repeating his BS FEC charge tracing this back to Joan and Jeff. They don't realize (or maybe they do) that when they print those words.... most people accept that accusation as truth.

Why would a campaign send an anonymous postcard accusing a candidate of something when they were willing to have a press conference the day beofre on the front steps of the old courthouse with the entire city's media the day before to say the same thing. It doesn't add up.

Our newspaper should be more responsible than becoming a vessel to repeat false charges in a way that presents them as facts to their readers. I am beginning to think that some of these posts about Carnahan cooking up the whole thing themselves might be right.

Jeff has run the most substantive and engaging campaign I have seen in STL in a long time. Joan has an honorable record in the legislature. Carnahan is trying to coverr all of them in mud and hope no one can tell the difference. The PD seems only to happy to help. I will be cancelling my subscription this week and urge all of you to do the same!

Benjy Levin (http://www.benjysbargains.com/) works for Bellington Realty, a notorious buy-it-and-flip-it operation. He flipped the house next to my four-family.

Yes I did ask Jeff Smith to sign the affadavit-I also asked Mark Smith who agreed to sign it. If Jeff had no knowledge of it he could and would have signed.

I'm not opposed to negative campagning-its called free speech-sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I am infuriated by anonymous literature whether its illegal or not-have the guts to take credit for what you did. I was prepared to get to the bottom of this Nazi tactic but since it didn't achieve its purpose (and may have backfired in that it probably cost Jeff the Post endorsement which would have give him a percent or two) I'm letting sleeping dogs ..."

I am subscribing to Arch City Chronicle and am glad it exists.

Here is one to chew on-

Todays's New York Times has a big article about the evangelcials and family values in Missouir-but the story fails to mention that three of the major Republican candidates in the state are not only divofrced but where adulterous in their first marriages-why isn't this reported.?

Jeff's people including Steve Brown deserve to be congratulated for their efforts and results. I'd especially like to see Steve Brown in another election since his close defeat to Sam Page.