Bush-campaign saboteur gets an unlikely olive branch.

Press Herald ^ | December 19, 2003 | Bill Nemitz

[UCAL]

Bush-campaign saboteur gets an unlikely olive branch

Say what you will about George W. Bush. The man knows how to forgive and forget.

Three years after Tom Connolly dropped a fax of the president's old drunken-driving conviction into the hands of local news media - and in the process all but torched a presidential campaign just days before a historic national election - the Portland lawyer finally heard back this week from the man Connolly once referred to on his Web site as "Weinerboy."

It came in the mail on Wednesday. It's a computer-autographed, color picture of the president and first lady Laura Bush, both smiling warmly from outside their ranch in Crawford, Texas

Below the picture, it says, "To: Thomas J. Connolly, Thank you for your early commitment and dedication as a Charter Member of the Campaign in Maine. Grassroots leaders like you are the key to building a winning team. Best wishes, Laura Bush, George Bush."

"He needs me!" exulted Connolly, holding up the greeting in his Fore Street office as if it were a first-class ticket to redemption. "He can't win without me!"

To appreciate just what a triumph this is for Connolly, we need to look back over what's happened since Nov. 2, 2000, when he passed a television reporter a tip about Bush's 1976 OUI in Kennebunkport.

In short, it hasn't been pretty.

First came the death threats from Bush zealots convinced that Connolly, Maine's 1998 Democratic candidate for governor and a delegate to the 2000 Democratic National Convention, was the hit man tapped by the Al Gore campaign to blindside Bush with a last-minute smear as Election Day neared. To this day, Connolly insists he acted at no one else's behest.....

[UCAL]

Might be time to send this guy some more subscriptions.

[RetiredArmy]

How bout one to the gay guys of the demo party.

[danneskjold]

Sounds like Tom Connolly and Joe Wilson could be related...at least in self-important kind of way...

[speedy]

I think it might be in order to wipe the smile off of this clown's face. Or maybe the "arse" who wrote this favorable piece on him. We do have his e-mail address, after all.

[Solson]

Hillarious article. this guy got it good...and deserved every bit of it.

[UCAL]

I still get angry when I think about this jerk. It's a typical democrat tactic to wait until just before the election to unload some dirt. I think he should pay for it some more.

If he had done it to Clinton the IRS would have been all over him.

[Miss Marple]

This guy is a grade A jerk. So is the reporter.

I recommend gifts to the reporter for bringing us such a lovely holiday story.

[UCAL]

"this guy got it good"

Still, there's probably magazines that he hasn't had a chance to preview yet....

[Texagirl4W]

But he wouldn't have lived long enough to pay anything to them.

[speedy]

Absolutely. This was the most blatant of cheap shots and the media could not restrain its breathess excitement. So very Dem. As if a guy this active in the party wasn't working in cahoots with national strategists on an issue like this. What a liar. I think it's time his lawn was fertilized with a little more garbage. Like old Gore campaign posters

[Solson]

This reporter did us a favor. The guy gets more grief whenever he's in the news...now he's in the news.

[BenLurkin]

The drunk driving smear was timed to a "T".

The drunk driving smear was to ONLY reason eh 200 election wasn't a big win for the Republicans.

[BenLurkin]

eh 200 = the 2000.

Hey, it passed spell check!

[speedy]

Yep, the scribe could probably use a few extra publications in his mailbox for his professional enhancement. Treating it like it's something cute instead of the classless act it was. They used to scream about Donald Segretti for doing so-called "Dirty Tricks" for Nixon that never sank to this level.

[UCAL]

Makes you wonder who these voters are that can change their minds based on such news. I guess Bush should have gotten this out once he had the primary wrapped up.

Still, if you were planning to vote for Bush and didn't because of a decades old OUI arrest, it comes off as very fickle.

[RichInOC]

Tom...George Bush is the president of the United States, and has an extremely good shot (knock knock knock) at being president for the next five years. You are still a lawyer in Portland.

Merry Christmas, Weinerboy.

[UCAL]

Chris Lehane: Al Gore's press secretary, " self nicknamed 'The Master of Disaster" for his role in digging up dirt on Clinton accusers and congressional committee members investigating the White Water land deal is from, you guessed it, Kennebunkport, Maine.

Lehane is sort of a local celebrity in Maine political circles for his role defending the White House from various scandals while working for the Clintons in Washington, D.C. Before the White House, Mr. Lehane built quite a political career in Maine working for Democrat campaigns.

Erin Lehane: She is Chris Lehane's sister. She lives in Kennebunkport, Maine. It just so happens that Al Gore's press secretary's sister works for a law firm with state Democratic chairman and ex-Gov. Kenneth Curtis, who, along with Tom Connolly, was a Gore delegate to the Democratic convention in Los Angeles.

Judge William Childs: Said to have pulled Bush's DUI record four months ago. In some reports, Tom Connolly received the information from this Judge. The question is: In the last four months has William Childes had any contact with the Gore Campaign?

Todd Webster: A native of Yarmouth, Maine, serves as deputy communications director on the Gore campaign.

Pat Eltman: A resident of South Portland, Maine. Mr. Eltman, among other things, helped orchestrate the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles for the Gore campaign.

Emmett Beliveau: Of Hallowell, Maine, works on the Gore advance team.

There are the facts.

All of those people are Democratic activists or Gore staffers from Maine. The only coincidence or surprise here, would be that one of them didn't supply the Bush info to Tom Connolly to release 5 days before the election

[Az Joe]

No. I believe it hit the Wed night before the election, not enough time for most people to read about it and digest it's meaning.

It was timed and designed to smear. It drove undecideds to Gore, when the usual pattern was for undecideds to break for the challenger against the "incumbent".

IMHO

[ThreeYearLurker]

I thought that Childs was Mark Fabiani (The other Master of Disaster) college roommate.

[ER_in_OC,CA]

I disagree that he "deserves" what he's received. Why is it funny when someone's property is destroyed? Is theft funny? (subscriptions, mail order products, etc. -- SOMEONE pays for that fraud -- sending items via UPS is not free).

If you were in possession of evidence of a similar situation about a dem nominee, would you want exposing something truthful to receive such treatment? Ridiculous.

Anyone thinking of destroying this man's property or credit is a scoundrel who deserves to be prosecuted.