Rand Paul Staffer Reportedly Goes Undercover As A Liberal To Shake-Up Democratic Rival's Campaign

A staffer working for Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul's campaign was called out on Tuesday for reportedly pretending to be a progressive blogger in an allegedly stealth attempt to undermine the campaign of the Republican hopeful's Democratic challenger, Jack Conway.

According to the Daily Kos, a progressive blog and online community, Thomas Kubica, a paid intern for Team Paul, has on multiple occasions taken to the site to express his views on the contentious Senate fight under false pretenses.

Jed Lewison writes:

Paul campaign's front desk confirmed Kubica's status as a paid intern on Tuesday morning.

Kubica registered at Daily Kos under the pseudonym "Huey Long" and has repeatedly posed as a progressive Democrat who opposes Paul but does not believe Conway is worthy of support.

After highlighting some of the posts contributed by Kubica to the Daily Kos, Lewison signaled that because of the lack of transparency and Kubica's connection to the Tea Party-backed contender's campaign, "it goes without saying that Kubica, as a concern troll," is not welcome to participate on the site.

While we are tolerant of a wide range of views within the "Big Blue Tent," make no mistake: this site is every bit as blue as it is orange. If Kubica had identified his role with his campaign, he would not have been welcome in the community, so he resorted to deception. Now that we know who he is, he's been banned, per community guidelines.

Meanwhile, Conway appears to be busy trying to advance his own political operation. In an e-mail blasted to campaign supporters on Tuesday, the Democratic hopeful made a fundraising appeal by defining some of his own views, while also taking aim at some of those that have been expressed by Paul.

"I've come out in support of Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, pushed Alan Simpson to step down and stop threatening Social Security, and continued to fight the scourge of illegal drug abuse in Eastern Kentucky," wrote Conway. "Meanwhile, Rand Paul continues to talk about his risky ideas like gutting the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, and tells people America is like Rome before its fall."

(Click here to read the whole post from Lewison at the Daily Kos.)

Comments

[Bcasey11]

11:07 PM on 09/08/2010

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=KrY5dEeDt­io&feature­=related

playing them at their own game

[bigbubba90210]

05:35 PM on 09/08/2010

When you've got nothing to offer, nothing's left other than to resort to "dirty tricks."

[Marcelo Munoz]

05:39 PM on 09/08/2010

Do you really think Conway did it or just his staffers? I mean, they got caught pretty bad at Fancy Farm last month.

[Marcelo Munoz]

05:33 PM on 09/08/2010

DEBUNKED AGAIN!

From Politico -

"the poster had registered and validated the account with the email address pnkrck15@c­ox.net. Kubica's email handle is identical, but with a different Internet provider..­.........C­ox is a regional provider unavailabl­e in Kentucky or in Pennsylvan­ia, where Kubica went ot school"

What about the Conway supporter who was pretending to be a Paul supporter at the Fancy Farm picnic?? Where's the outrage there????

[demorick]

05:15 PM on 09/08/2010

This is nothing new...Nixo­n's re-electio­n campaign did the same thing. An attorney by the name of Donald Segretti was one of the people who would pull that stunt. The campaign called it "rat phuquing". I remember reading about it in Woodward and Bernstein'­s "All the President'­s Men"...I believe Segretti did some jail time over it...

[demorick]

05:19 PM on 09/08/2010

Here's a link to Segretti..­.

http://en.­wikipedia.­org/wiki/D­onald_Segr­etti

[llstudent]

05:10 PM on 09/08/2010

I already figured out what these cheats are probably doing, they will do any dirty thing it takes in order to get into office, think "2000" election and this next election is just the time to do it. They are very dirty people expect anything now.

[TheeJoeGlass]

03:35 PM on 09/08/2010

15 point lead.

[DorkamusPrime1]

02:53 PM on 09/08/2010

Righties always accuse dems/progs­/libs of doing this very thing. They're always suspicious­....probab­ly because many of them suffer frmo projection­ism.

[electra10]

02:54 PM on 09/08/2010

mm'hmmm. :)

[Marcelo Munoz]

05:43 PM on 09/08/2010

Did you see how the Conway supporter got caught at Fancy Farm? It is all over YouTube. Pretty funny.

[zendem1]

09:34 PM on 09/08/2010

You might as well give up. Nothing for you here.
Now run along,Momm­y has cookies.

[electra10]

02:21 PM on 09/08/2010

"Paul campaign's front desk confirmed Kubica's status as a paid intern on Tuesday morning. Kubica registered at Daily Kos under the pseudonym "Huey Long" and has repeatedly posed as a progressiv­e Democrat who opposes Paul but does not believe Conway is worthy of support"

^ haha! Many times here my posts been challenged by -

a 'DEM' who opposes Obama or
a 'JOHN Q HISPANIC' defending Jan Brewer's BS1070 & outrage over the UN investigat­ion
a 'PROGRESSI­VE' calling me loony & saying the 'facts' aren't on my side when i make the statement that RepubliCAN­'TS are in BIG OIL'S Pockets (which i backed with umpteen links)

the DAILY KOS isn't the only site that has POSERS on it trying to undermine the DEM party because they don't have anything positive to build their ridiculous platform on.

nope, the HUFF is full of PHONY POSERS too.

[Eris23]

03:06 PM on 09/08/2010

"a 'DEM' who opposes Obama"

Well, I'm a Democrat who no longer supports him. I'm just not asking for him to move more to the right.

[electra10]

03:20 PM on 09/08/2010

YOUR COMMENTS ARE A PART OF THE PROBLEM!

you're a 'fright' winger's dream (if you're not already an undercover tro//)

Obama is NOT supportive of their policies that wrecked our economy & you making statements that allude to him being on the 'right' (DARK!) side is silly nonsense

keep your ridiculous comments to yourself unless you want to hand over the elections on a silver platter to the RepubliCAN­'Ts.

[Marcelo Munoz]

05:34 PM on 09/08/2010

DEBUNKED AGAIN!

From Politico -

"the poster had registered and validated the account with the email address pnkrck15@c­ox.net. Kubica's email handle is identical, but with a different Internet provider..­.........C­ox is a regional provider unavailabl­e in Kentucky or in Pennsylvan­ia, where Kubica went ot school"

What about the Conway supporter who was pretending to be a Paul supporter at the Fancy Farm picnic?? Where's the outrage there????

[electra10]

05:39 PM on 09/08/2010

so i'm supposed to believe it was a real progressiv­e, who used a real neo-con's handle to spew-anti-­democrat rhetoric on a progressiv­e site?

raaaaaight­. that makes more sense than the first story... NOT.

[Bobbygoode]

02:13 PM on 09/08/2010

Slime balls, glad they were at least called out by they do it all the time no doubt. In Cali they often send Democratic­s official looking "ballot suggestion­s", and list all the major dems to vote for -- but there's always one propositio­n that's obviously a right wing proposal they slip in. Fooling people is the only way they can steal offices, and then steal money. It's all one big robbery.

[Marcelo Munoz]

05:34 PM on 09/08/2010

DEBUNKED AGAIN!

From Politico -

"the poster had registered and validated the account with the email address pnkrck15@c­ox.net. Kubica's email handle is identical, but with a different Internet provider..­.........C­ox is a regional provider unavailabl­e in Kentucky or in Pennsylvan­ia, where Kubica went ot school"

What about the Conway supporter who was pretending to be a Paul supporter at the Fancy Farm picnic?? Where's the outrage there????

[Wendy Johnson]

01:30 PM on 09/08/2010

Sounds like the same sophomoric tomfoolery that inspired the Aqua Buddha.

[Marcelo Munoz]

05:34 PM on 09/08/2010

DEBUNKED AGAIN!

From Politico -

"the poster had registered and validated the account with the email address pnkrck15@c­ox.net. Kubica's email handle is identical, but with a different Internet provider..­.........C­ox is a regional provider unavailabl­e in Kentucky or in Pennsylvan­ia, where Kubica went ot school"

What about the Conway supporter who was pretending to be a Paul supporter at the Fancy Farm picnic?? Where's the outrage there????

[ColinStevens]

01:19 PM on 09/08/2010

Politico updated the story to show that it HAD to have been the Paul staffer, and that the Paul campaign is lying in their denial:

"UPDATE: Or not. Even if that email to Paul's campaign was fake, DailyKos's evidence is pretty strong. They were basing their allegation on the fact that the sign-up email, which has to be validated and can't be faked, is one that appears on Kubica's online resumes.

"Our evidence is based on the signup email -- which can't be scammed. The owner of that email has to verify it by clicking on a link to post on Daily Kos," Markos Moulitsas emails, providing a different, and apparently real, email address for Kubica."

That's not even mentioning the fact that with the e-mail that the Paul campaign offers as "evidence" that they're innocent, ISP info often shows up in another state if the provider is IN another state - not to mention having an open proxy or doing tunneling, which is a common IT trick in political campaigns. AND not to mention that the GOP has been caught before placing operatives for campaigns in other states to do counter-pr­ogramming on blogs - they were caught doing it in 2008.

In short, Paul's denial doesn't hold water.

[kmichal456]

01:56 PM on 09/08/2010

Not to mention possibilit­y of a liberal hacking guy's email like it has happened before.

[electra10]

02:24 PM on 09/08/2010

but you made sure to mention it, huh tro//?

[Bobbygoode]

02:19 PM on 09/08/2010

Even if they deny it or it didn't happen, you know they do it. So, let's do the same thing! But the hard core right wing ideologues are harder nuts to crack. Pun intended.

[24kgold]

12:58 PM on 09/08/2010

Yeah HP get a lot of republican trol/z pretending to be liberals who have turned against Obama too, call them out and dont take the bait... The whole republican party doesn't have any integrity, I see they are going to try everything to steal elections in Nov...

[funkyou]

01:15 PM on 09/08/2010

I was just thinkin' the same thing.

[funkyou]

01:17 PM on 09/08/2010

Always vote on paper...re­mind everyone!!
This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to machine voting!!!
http://www­.bradblog.­com/?p=799­8
"touch-scr­een voting machine with Pac-Man hacked onto it without disturbing any of the "tamper-ev­ident" seals supposedly meant to protect it from hackers...­"

[Chubbster]

12:48 PM on 09/08/2010

EEEK. Rand is coming. EEEEKKKK.

[amaboss52]

12:46 PM on 09/08/2010

This guys a real good "spy", James Bond is laughing hysterical­ly.

[Marcelo Munoz]

05:36 PM on 09/08/2010

DEBUNKED AGAIN!

From Politico -

"the poster had registered and validated the account with the email address pnkrck15@c­ox.net. Kubica's email handle is identical, but with a different Internet provider..­.........C­ox is a regional provider unavailabl­e in Kentucky or in Pennsylvan­ia, where Kubica went ot school"

What about the Conway supporter who was pretending to be a Paul supporter at the Fancy Farm picnic?? Where's the outrage there????

[fairwayhill]

12:46 PM on 09/08/2010

The best antidote against disinforma­tion is more informatio­n. Not cens0rship­. This is what the Internet is all about as far as free speech is concerned.

[Marcelo Munoz]

05:36 PM on 09/08/2010

DEBUNKED AGAIN!

From Politico -

"the poster had registered and validated the account with the email address pnkrck15@c­ox.net. Kubica's email handle is identical, but with a different Internet provider..­.........C­ox is a regional provider unavailabl­e in Kentucky or in Pennsylvan­ia, where Kubica went ot school"

What about the Conway supporter who was pretending to be a Paul supporter at the Fancy Farm picnic?? Where's the outrage there????