I‘ve been trying to wrap my brain around Morton Brilliant’s resignation since I heard about it. Brilliant, who formerly managed gubernatorial candidate Cathy Cox’s campaign, is alleged to have edited Lt. Governor and Cox’s primary opponent Mark Taylor’s Wikipedia profile to mention Taylor’s son’s DUI arrest.
Why is this a scandal? Why should I be outraged that Taylor’s profile was updated with accurate information? Why is this even a discussion topic right now?
I don’t have a horse in the governor’s race right now. I probably lean a little toward Cox, but am not happy with her initial opposition to paper ballot receipts, and am therefore open-minded about Taylor. With several legislators jumping ship to the GOP and $400K cash-on-hand versus $4 million for Republicans, Democrats flat aren’t going to take the Legislature back this election, so there’s no chance I’ll vote for Perdue. If full disclosure of background information about a candidate qualifies as a scandal to the Taylor campaign, I view that as not being much different than the secrecy practiced by the current Legislature’s leadership.
Am I off base? Is there something insidious about this that I’m missing or leaving out?
I think the problem is although it may be factual, it’s not really relevant. The problem will only get worse if the “consultants” turn the Wikipedia common editing paradigm into a outlet for political venom.
Check what may be going on in the Fla Governor’s race where a subtle campaign is going on to tag Charlie Crist as a closet homosexual.
Link didn’t work.
http://griftdrift.blogspot.com/2006/04/more-wikipedia-madness.html
I’ve got a similar post up on this right now over at my blog:
http://www.castingoutnines.net/2006/04/27/wikipedia-tampering-in-the-news-again/
I basically can’t see the wrongdoing in using a website whose purpose is to accumulate publicly available knowledge, to post publicly available knowledge. It seems like a pretty rotten thing to drag the kid’s DUI into the picture, but strictly speaking I don’t see how we can either fault nor control Wikipedia, or the people who edit stuff there, for including information relating to a topic. In other words, ethically I have my doubts that this was the right thing to do, but technologically I don’t see how you can stop it from happening.
Oh cry me a fucking river (not you)… like the Repubs haven’t pulled that shit eleventy-million times. Didn’t they fuck w/ John McCain in S. Carolina, or am I thinking of someone else?
I don’t think you’re totally off-base. It wouldn’t be an issue at all if someone not connected to any political campaign whatsoever edited the Wikipedia entry. The issue is that the entry was edited by a political opponent.
Had the Taylor campaign not said anything, no one would have really noticed, and the Taylor-Cox battle would have had more room to focus on issues we actually care about.
As a Cox supporter, I’m disappointed. Brilliant had to go because what he did flies in the face of what she’s trying to do. She’s trying to seperate herself from politics as usual that players like Perdue and Taylor have been a part of for years. I don’t believe in attacking candidate’s families and Cox doesn’t either, which is why he couldn’t stay. Just because everyone else does it, doesn’t excuse it.
You never know what kind of impact a change like this can have on a campaign. Cox put her money where her mouth is on this one. And that’s the silver lining in all of this.
But what you said is the most important thing here. We need to get down to issues. And we need to hash them out in a vigourous, yet respectful way. Because those of us opposing Perdue will have to unite when it’s all said and done. I don’t care what anyone says. It’s going to be hard to unseat a Republican incumbent in 2006 Georgia, which is as red as the clay right now.
Amber, that’s exactly my point. It is exactly like the push polling Rove pulled on McCain in SC in 2000. Look at the Florida Gov campaign. Someone put in one candidates entry that there are ” loud rumors regarding the divorced Crist’s sexual preference, he has now stated repeatedly that he is heterosexual.”
Why don’t they just ask him when he stopped beating his dog?
Here’s why he had to go: given that congressional staffers have already gotten caught monkey-ing about with Wikipedia, he should never have been so stupid as to use a computer that could be traced back to him. If he can’t pull off a very minor Dirty Trick like this, how could anyone depend upon him to start some real shit?