The paper provides more information about the sneak attack in Demmer goes on offensive to defend his name Demmer: Dredged up lawsuit is simply dirty politics (the PB changed the headline; corrected to reflect that):
A couple weeks ago, state Rep. Randy Demmer received an ominous call. It was a warning, delivered through an intermediary from Washington, D.C.: Drop your candidacy for U.S. Congress or information about a sexual harassment lawsuit settled a decade ago would be dredged up to damage your campaign.
On Tuesday, Demmer, a three-term state representative from Hayfield, decided to deal preemptively with the threat by going public, telling his story to the Post-Bulletin. He also has sent out hundreds of letters to the delegates and alternates who will endorse a Republican candidate to run against 1st District Rep. Tim Walz.. . .
. . .On Monday, the Post-Bulletin received an anonymous telephone tip with information about the sexual harassment suit filed in U.S. District Court against Demmer, the three NAPA Auto Parts stores he then owned and a store manager in 1995. The paper also received an anonymous e-mail on the subject. . . .
Despite a comment in the Post, this doesn't look like a story driven by Demmer's Democratic opponents, but rather an internal partisan battle. After all, there would have been no incentive for the DFL to ask Demmer to drop out before the Republican endorsing convention at the end of March.
We had received notice last night that the material was being brought forward, but we didn't know--and still don't know--who used Representative Demmer's Washington D.C. contact to try to coerce him into dropping out.
Perhaps the Post Bulletin or Randy Demmer might be willing to share the identity of the Beltway middle man in the interest of discovering who exactly is playing hardball here.
In the other article today about the attempted smear, Demmer does make an educated guess about the source:
Demmer said he suspects the effort originates in Republican circles, because he's not even the endorsed candidate to oppose Democrat Walz yet. He said he received a call from a Republican in Washington, an apparent ally, who had received a package with the information and called to warn him.
Update: MnPublius revisits the story in a post about the intra-party fight. Whodunit?
Second update: Welcome to those readers who are coming to this site via the links our kind friend Flash provided in the comments section of another site.
While that site's owner is frantically trying to make the pressure put on Rep. Demmer to somehow be the fault of lefty bloggers at MnPublius, a brief consideration of how the Stolle articles were investigated and published demonstrate how foolish this spin is.
Mr. Stolle most likely began researching the story no later than Monday, when the unknown cad placed a cowardly and anonymous call and sent an anonymous email to the Post Bulletin. The reporter contacted the Demmer campaign, which has demonstrated sound judgment and went on the defensive. Stolle interviewed Demmer on Tuesday and Demmer sent out his response that day as well. We're willing to bet that his campaign had been preparing that response since the first contact via Washington D.C.
Given the Post Bulletin's publication schedule, it's likely that Stolle handed in the story before the MNPublius write-up was posted.
BSP learned very late Tuesday night that material about the lawsuits would be forthcoming, but we were not among those contacted by the person or persons distributing the smear. Had we been so contacted, we would have directed our research abilities toward discerning their identity.
This story isn't about bloggers. Having researched sexual harassment law and policy making for clients back in the time of the lawsuit, we don't think the lawsuit is the real story here, either. Rather, it's the discovery of the identity of the individual or individuals who set the ball rolling with the contact in Washington several weeks ago. Is that the same person who contacted the Post Bulletin on Monday and the bloggers at MnPublius as well? Since the dirty trickster didn't contact us, we don't know.
We do not know how MnPublius got wind of the story, but we think it safe to say now that they, too, are probably looking to discover who sent this material to them.
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