Martin's campaign manager fired shortly after 'Nazi' web gag in 2006
“Bud” Martin’s campaign broke the glass casing and punched the “politics of personal destruction” button right out of the gates in the Senate District 3 special election. But new revelations suggest they may need to choose another line of argument.
Martin has hired as his campaign manager one Joe Elcock. Elcock has a long history of engaging in campaign mudslinging. In perhaps the most extreme example of his dirty tricks, a campaign Elcock managed in Minnesota compared its Republican rival to a Nazi; a move that spurred a national backlash against his client and may have contributed to Elcock’s ultimate dismissal from the campaign.
In 2006 Elcock briefly managed the Coleen Rowley campaign for Congress in Minnesota against incumbent Republican John Kline.
In February of that year the Rowley campaign posted a photoshopped image of Kline, a decorated Marine, in a Nazi uniform. The picture was intended to be funny. The Nazi in question was Col. Klink from TV’s Hogan’s Heroes. But Kline was not amused. He sent a “tersely worded” letter to Rowley demanding she remove the image and apologize, which she eventually did.
The “Nazi” gag was a public relations and fundraising disaster for the Elcock-run campaign. According to Roll Call, Elcock’s blunder “attracted national donors to Kline’s campaign.”
For his part, Elcock attempted to blame a campaign volunteer for the attack. In a bizarre and contradictory statement, Elcock also said, "It wasn't the intention of the campaign to make John Kline look like a Nazi.”
Elcock was fired by Rowley sometime later. Around the time of his dismissal, Roll Call reported that the Rowley campaign “is going so badly that they’re turning their sights on damage control.”
The social networking site LinkIn confirms New Hampshire’s Joe Elcock and Minnesota’s Joe Elcock are one in the same. Under “Joe Elcock’s Experience” he lists, “Manager -- Rowley for Congress … 2006 — 2006 (less than a year).”
Willard "Bud" Martin w/ comrade Billy Shaheen. Masters of the art of dirty. Why else would he hire Elcock?
