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James Who?
 Three days after the Democrats’ historic win in the 2006 mid-term elections, the Republican National Committee disowned former New England RNC coordinator, James Tobin. Republican lawyers in the NH Democratic State Committee’s civil suit against the RNC’s for its phone-jamming activities on election day 2002 in effect told NH Superior Court Justice Philip Mangones,
Don’t think we know the guy. James who did you say? Oh, him. We think he might have been a contractor, but we didn’t even take taxes out of what he paid him. And we certainly didn’t give him any benefits or anything. We think he was working on our get-out-the-vote…
Democratic lawyers got a big chuckle out of that line of reasoning. What about the $2.6 million they spent defending him in the phone-jamming criminal case? Is that something they do for all their passing acquaintances?
Oh, say the Republicans, that was that idiot Eddie Gillespie’s idea – and he just lost George Allen’s re-election bid for him, so we don’t like him much either. As soon as Tobin was found guilty, we cut off his legal funds. Ask him, he’s paying for his appeal himself.
Yes he is – with the hundreds of thousands of dollars the RNC paid Tobin’s wife to be a consultant for the re-election campaign of Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), despite the fact that the sum total of her experience as a political consultant amounted to being married to one. And it showed – Chafee lost.
Mangones made no ruling on the requests for summary judgment. The case is scheduled to go to trial November 27.
NH Republican State Committee chairman Wayne Semprini wastes no opportunity to bemoan the politically-based nature of the Democrats’ civil case against them, and blamed the NH Republicans’ stunning losses at the polls Tuesday on a lack of resources.
“We’ve got two paid staff who make $85K between them and get no benefits, while the Democrats have six paid staff making $450K between them with full benefits. How can we compete with that?”
So, why are the Republicans fielding an under-funded, under-staffed team? Where did all their money go? Uhh, to lawyers defending them in the phone-jamming scandal? It turns out the consequences of subverting democracy have ripple effects. There’s a lesson in there, but they’ll no doubt miss it.
Tobin is free on bail pending the appeal of his 10-month sentence. Oh, and James – of course it hurts. You’re getting screwed by an elephant.
Also see: Jammus, Jammerama, Jamming1, Abramoff
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