Poor Romney

All he Had to do was say “I didn’t know about it, but I apologize for the firms actions and will take care of it.” But of course, he didn’t, and now he’s got one hell of a mess to clean up that could’ve been avoided:

First, from Time Magazine’s Jay Carney:

And so, on page A3 of the Washington Post, appears my favorite political story of the day — about the link between South Carolina’s feared and (in some quarters) revered GOP hitman, J. Warren Tompkins, and the creation of an anti-Fred Thompson website called PhoneyFred.org. Tompkins is serving as Mitt Romney’s top South Carolina adviser — a role he has played often in his 25-year run as the most powerful non-elected man in Palmetto State politics. It was the role Tompkins played for George W. Bush in the Bush campaign’s smackdown of John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary. For those who don’t recall, that was the state where “mysterious” pro-Bush forces waged an under-the-radar slander campaign against McCain, who had just demolished Bush in the New Hampshire primary. The Bush campaign — including Tompkins — claimed no complicity in the slander, an assertion taken at face value by exactly no one with any experience in South Carolina GOP politics.

PhoneyFred.Org disappeared from the Web shortly after the Post’s reporter, Michael Shear, began asking the Romney campaign about it. Thompson spokesman Todd Harris (a McCain 2000 veteran) called on Romney to fire Tompkins. As this SC blogger pointed out last year, Tompkins’ power in the state has been ebbing. And his role in Romney’s campaign hasn’t done anything to lift the former Massachussetts governor out of fourth place in South Carolina polls of the GOP candidates. We’ll see what happens.

Next, we hear from the New York Times:

The site, PhoneyFred.org, was created by Wesley Donehue, who is not an employee of the Romney organization and created the home page without the knowledge of anyone in the campaign, said Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Mr. Romney.
“We had no knowledge of it whatsoever,” he said.
But Mr. Donehue is listed as “the first associate consultant and vice president” on the home page for TTS Strategies, where Warren Tompkins, Mr. Romney’s top political consultant in South Carolina, and Terry Sullivan, Mr. Romney’s South Carolina state director, are partners. The blurb describing Mr. Donehue’s role at the firm said he ran its daily operations and called him one of the state’s most experienced political operatives.

Of course, that link has disappeared today also.

From the Flap:

Uh-huh. Romney’s spokesman also says Donehue is “not an employee of ours,” yet Donehue’s “On The Mark” direct mail firm received $81,225.02 from the Romney campaign during the second quarter of 2007, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Incidentally, Time Magazine’s political blog, aptly-titled The Swampland, has an interesting piece this afternoon detailing Tompkins’ shady past. The post even links to a story we wrote on the old FITS last year about the consultant’s declining influence in Palmetto politics.

UPDATE - If there was any doubt as to the inter-connectivity of Donehue’s “On The Mark” direct mail firm and the “Under The Power Lines” netroots firm (which created the anti-Thompson site), both are prominently featured on Tompkins and Sullivan’s corporate website. Or at least they were prominently featured before the website was taken down earlier today. Don’t worry, we saved it for you here.

Click Here to see that Mr. Tompkins site very prominently advertised Mr. Donahue’s site. Of course, it was taken down today.

For more on Donehue, we now turn to the Washington Post:

The firm Tompkins, Thompson, Sullivan has received $37,596 from Romney’s campaign, most of it for “Political strategy consulting.” The web site for that firm has been taken down, but a recent page cached by Google lists him as an “associate consultant and vice president” of the firm.

“As the first associate consultant and vice president of TTS, Wesley Donehue runs the daily operations of the firm. Despite being only 27 years old, he is one of the most experienced operatives in the state,” the site says.

The firm is run by Warren Tompkins — Romney’s senior adviser in South Carolina — and Terry Sullivan, who is on Romney’s payroll as the South Carolina state director.

The company Under the Power Lines, which describes itself as an internet consulting firm, lists Donehue as a “Partner/Consultant.” The phoneyfred.org website was hosted on the same server as the Under the Power Lines website.

Donehue is also listed as an “Associate” in a direct mail firm called On the Mark Direct, which has been paid $146,018 by Romney’s campaign for printing.

If only Romney would’ve done the right thing, he could’ve avoided this mess. However, as usual, he tries to deflect the blame onto somebody else.