First there was the coordination of the Lefty bloggers, political operatives, and “journalists” on messaging known as “JournoList” – a coordinated effort started by Ezra Kline to drive the same story the same way over and over again. That is, until it was discovered and then “stopped” (even as some still think that it still exists albeit in some other form).
I’m shocked, SHOCKED I tell you! There seems to be a “secret agent drop box” process at play on the Dem side – and Jeanne Shaheen is The Object Lesson of the Day. Yes, coordination. Between entities that should not, by law, coordinating on campaigns. The NRSC steps up to the blackboard for this lesson on political sleight of hand:
For some time, journalists and political observers have wondered how Harry Reid’s Majority PAC runs ads that always seems to be strategically coordinated with the campaigns they are supporting, since said coordination is prohibited by law. Now we know.
Yesterday, our friends at the DSCC tweeted this “important message for New Hampshire.” It linked to a hidden “message” page on Jeanne Shaheen’s website providing what seems to be a script with research and high resolution images of the Senator that would be the type that commonly appear in political ads run by outside groups like Harry Reid’s Majority PAC. Remember, coordination between the DSCC and these outside groups is prohibited by law.
Turns out that over the last few months, we’ve picked up on the fact that each time the DSCC sends an “important message” to voters of a battleground state, a liberal outside group quickly adheres to the message by producing an ad to be run on television. In other words, anytime the DSCC sends an “important message,” it is a directive to outside groups to run an “uncoordinated” ad (since, you know coordination would be illegal). Pretty confident in our theory, yesterday we made an open bet that by Cinco De Mayo, Reid’s Majority PAC would run an ad in New Hampshire that closely follows the script provided by the DSCC/Shaheen (we also note the hypocrisy of Shaheen ranting about the “people’s pledge” to limit outside money while posting images scripts for sources of outside money to run ads).
Turns out we gave Majority PAC too much credit. Less than 24 hours after receiving the directive from the DSCC, Senate Majority PAC has reserved hundreds of thousands of dollars of air time in Manchester New Hampshire. Remember, coordination would be illegal, so Democrats are trying their best to find ways to subvert (or work around) the law.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this pattern, but it is the most egregious. Check out the following examples:
Does anyone believe that these are all coincidences? Of course not. Does anyone have any thoughts as to what script that Majority PAC’s new ad in New Hampshire will follow? We sure don’t.
All it takes is one original, short conversation to set up a protocol and then nary another syllable has to be uttered for quite some time; these folks are generally not flat out dumb and monkey-see-monkey-do will happen (the “spontaneous order” of Hayek will not just happen in this case).
I guess we all get to watch, wait, and watch again, eh? Will this continue or has its cover been blown?
