Dr. Annette Bosworth for U.S. Senate? If so, we may be in for an exercise in campaign communications sloppier than Rick Weiland's Tumblr page.
From online appearances, someone on Team Bosworth thought it would be brilliant press strategy to announce the good doctor's desire to run in the GOP primary against M. Michael Rounds with some quiet, unsourced Web announcements. This afternoon, someone tipped off Pat Powers to two new Web entries, a CNN "iReport" (i.e., a blog open to any poster) calling Bosworth a "rising star in the Republican party" (which appears to be news and a mention of Bosworth as a potential candidate on Wikipedia's article on South Dakota's 2014 Senate race, both authored by an "sfogas," who appears to be Bosworth intern Samuel Fogas. Fogas also appears to have edited Wikipedia's summary page on all U.S. Senate 2014 elections today to include Bosworth in the list of candidates this non-footnoted statement: "Annette Bosworth, MD is expected to announce her candidacy later this month sources close to her say."
Intrepid political reporter David Montgomery calls Dr. Bosworth's office and gets a voicemail back from Fogas, who said "he wasn’t sure what he could say but wanted to let me know the message was received."
Wasn't sure what he could say? Holy uncoordinated communications! If a campaign is afoot, and if Dr. Bosworth told Fogas to leak this information, wouldn't you think they would have thought ahead so Fogas would know exactly what he could and should say when the press inevitably calls?
But why would Dr. Bosworth have told Fogas to post what he did? Why create fake buzz that can so transparently be traced right back to your own office? Why not find some of those Republicans among whom you are rising to generate that buzz for you?
Or better yet, instead of quasi-announcing on Wikipedia, why not control the roll-out? Why not call a press conference, get the mics and cameras, and make a real splash, complete with simultaneous roll-out of the campaign website (not on Tumblr!)? You control the message, you lay out the talking points, and you drive the media coverage. That beats the pants off some slipshod Web foolishness over which you immediately lose control and which turns attention to your poorly propagandizing intern instead of the pitch you must make to get Republicans to send you money instead of Mike Rounds.
If Annette Bosworth is running for Senate, she needs to hire someone to coordinate communications. And if she already has someone telling her to do what Sam Fogas did in the last 24 hours, she needs to fire that person and bring someone on board who knows the difference between false Wiki-buzz and a real campaign roll-out.
p.s.: Cris Daniels, another individual apparently interested in promoting Dr. Bosworth in CNN's iReport, stole my June 2012 blog post on Dr. Bosworth's persecution at the hands of the state medical board and reprinted it without any attribution. Naughty, naughty, Cris.
pp.s.: Fogas leaked his Bosworth announcement at a rotten time: the good doctor may be pre-occupied with CorTrust Bank's scheduled mortgage foreclosure tomorrow on her properties at 307 and 311 W. Opal Lane in Hartford.
ppp.s.: And in the only policy note of the evening, for those of you taking the Bosworth candidacy seriously, Dr. Bosworth only recently came to consider herself a prolife advocate... but she says that if a woman chooses to have an abortion, "I then treat them as if they have lost a loved one. Without judging. My job as a Doctor is to heal, not judge."
I can't say I really care about the Bosworth story. I don't see the SD Reps allowing a real conservative getting through (not saying she is one, I don't know).
But.
This Chris Daniels blatantly stealing your previous post just pisses me off. I just can't understand why people do that. All I can think is they really liked what you said, but didn't want those words to be associated with a left-of-center blogger.
I also think if your going to steal something you should at least try to improve it. I notice he kept the misspelled word inteegrating in his copy (that was not a knock at you Cory, I am the last person in the world to call out misspellings).
Hopefully if Bosworth is running she finds better people to help with her campaign.
Ken, would you believe I lay those misspellings as little booby traps to catch folks who might cut and paste without attribution? ;-)
I am always glad when people find my work worth sharing with others. But I expect them to properly attribute that work (at least a hyperlink, preferably with a full author-title-date citation), not strip my name and replace it with their own.
The Bosworth story is pure baseball right now, not policy. We'll see what happens if/when they get their communications game together and tell us what this is really all about.
Maybe Cris and Sam are just avatar's. Same person behind both?
In article above..."My job as a doctor is to heal not judge," first few paragraphs copied word for word off of Knights of Columbus ultrasound website.
Tonya, Chad Haber appears to be posting that ultrasound story on various websites. Can you point to the specific KoC text you say is plagiarized into Haber's text?
Avatars? Indeed: I can't find any "CrisDaniels" mentioned anywhere else in Sioux Falls. Do you recognize the photo posted with his CNN iReport profile?
http://www.kofc.org/un/en/news/releases/detail/548271.html
Also the information in his article was false. You do not need to be catholic to be eligible to receive an ultrasound machine. The stipulation is that the practice receiving the monitor can not be anti-catholic. (see below)
http://www.kofc.org/un/en/prolife/ultrasound/guidelines.html
Good links, Tonya, and you appear to be right on about the Catholic condition. I wonder how Haber got that wrong?
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-968290
Isn't this yours too, from more than a year ago? It was recently posted to the iReport CNN site as well.
You're right, Elizabeth! Thanks for pointing out that additional copyright violation.