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DEL.ICIO.USBo, say it ain’t so
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Political blogs are at the moment aflame with the news:
Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential front-runner and decorated Vietnam veteran, just hired Bo Harmon as national political director for McCain’s Republican front-runner campaign.
Harmon, Georgia politicos will remember, was managing Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss’ 2002 campaign when it put up a now notorious television ad criticizing another Vietnam vet, Democratic Sen. Max Cleland.
The ad, which featured pictures of Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, along with those of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, instantly outraged Democrats across the country and upset McCain to the point that he denounced his fellow Republican senator’s action as “worse than disgraceful.”
It’s a juicy story. Or at least it would be if it were true.
“That report is inaccurate,” Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, said Wednesday night.
Harmon does work for McCain’s campaign. But he’s not national political director. He was hired as an independent contractor to run the phone operation used to contact voters. And he wasn’t just hired. He’s been on the job for six to eight months.
And, yes, the McCain campaign is aware of Harmon’s pedigree, but didn’t fuss over it given that Harmon isn’t working in any decision-making capacity.
Moreover, Harmon had nothing to do with the Cleland ad that has haunted him on other campaigns he’s worked, according to the man who created it, Tom Perdue.
“He had nothing to do with our media,” Perdue said. “His job was to greet visitors who came into the campaign headquarters.”
Harmon did have the title of campaign manager, Perdue said, but “he was not involved in strategy”
Harmon couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday night.
And so it goes. If it sounds too juicy to be true….
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