Roger Stone

Former Assemblyman Ryan Karben, who was forced from office for allegations that he acted inappropriately with an intern, said his thoughts are with his friend Eliot Spitzer.

“I just feel terrible for Eliot and his family and he’s been a terrific public servant and he deserves some time to figure things out,” Karben told me just now. “I’m thinking about my friend Eliot, not about the governor.”

Roger Stone, a former consultant for the New York State Senate Republicans who was pushed out after an incident involving a profanity-laced phone call to Spitzer’s father, said, “I don’t find it surprising because he thinks the rules don’t apply to him.  read more »

Here are some more reactions from the big Democratic victory in last night’s special election, which cut the Republican majority in the state Senate down to one seat.

Roger Stone:

“A coup in the Senate would be a power-grab but Malcolm Smith might find he doesn’t have all the Democrats. Remember the difference between a caucus and a cactus? With a cactus all the pricks are on the outside.  read more »

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It doesn't get better (weirder?) than this, really. From an advisory that hit my inbox just now:

Roger Stone will provide political analysis for Al-Jazeera - ENGLISH
from 8pm EST to 11pm EST,
Today January 29th, 2008.

It can be seen in the United States live on the Internet at:

http://english.aljazeera.net/English

Football at presidential debate, shunned by Democrats, Governor Spitzer has become political pariah of party; Roger Stone gleeful, Anthony Weiner stressed out.  read more »

Roger Stone doesn’t think much of the suggestion (based on my reading of a Weekly Standard story) that he had any role in drumming up a controversy over the fact that Eliot Spitzer’s father and MTA nominee Dale Hemmerdinger were members of the racially un-diverse Harmonie Club. Hemmerdinger's membership became a contentious political issue after an angry letter from Democratic Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries.

Stone emails:

Azi
Just for the record, I never spoke to Hakim Jeffries, never spoke to his people and never asked anyone to speak to him. In fact, until I read the story I never heard of him.

He also said, “I admire what Jeffries did.”

In another email, Stone wrote:  read more »

A new Weekly Standard profile of Roger Stone has a suggestive nugget implying that he is still playing a quietly active role in a broad-based anti-Spitzer coalition.

From the story:  read more »

What is it, exactly, with Roger Stone and Richard Nixon?

The G.O.P. strategist, who worked for the state Senate Republicans until shortly after his Manhattan phone number was found to be the source of an obscenity-laced phone call on Aug. 6 to Eliot Spitzer’s father, originally said that he couldn't have placed the call because was out at the time attending a showing of Frost-Nixon at the theater. After it was reported that the play wasn't actually open that night, Stone--who got his start in politics as a Nixon trickster working for CREEP--said he was mistaken.

Now, another notable coincidence, with a remarkably similar theme: On the very day he was publicly accused of the phone shenanigans, according to Stone, he was in California, getting a tattoo on his back of Richard Nixon’s face.

Late last night, Stone's assistant sent me these photographs, which Stone says were taken at The Ink Monkey tattoo shop in Venice Beach, California.

The photos don't really have any bearing on the question of who made the crank call to Spitzer's dad--despite a half-hearted apology for the way in which he constructed his alibi, Stone still claims he was framed. But Stone will be happy to provide evidence, upon request, that he's really the guy in that weird picture on the left and that the tatoo is real.

Does anyone else get the impression that he's enjoying this?

Attached is the actual letter from Roger Stone apologizing to Dale Hemmerdinger, Chairman of the MTA, Democratic fund-raiser, and owner of the building where Stone lives, for saying Hemmerdinger, in essence, framed Stone for the prank phone call to Eliot Spitzer's father.

After the call was traced to a telephone number registered to Stone's apartment at 40 Central Park South, Stone suggested that since Hermmerdinger owned the building, he had keys to the apartment, and therefore, could have let anyone enter the apartment to make the call.

"It was inappropriate for me to suggest that just because you are a major Democratic Party fundraiser, major Spitzer fundraiser and the Governor's appointee to the MTA, that you would wrongly enter my apartment or have someone do so on your behalf even though management has access and keys to every apartment."

I got an email this morning from the author of the latest round of anti-Eliot Spitzer emails being sent from the address WJMAHONEY@gop-club.com. The web site was registered on August 14th and has been a source of regular dispatches about Spitzer’s shortcomings.

The sender's name is Sergio Rodriguez, and he is running for office in Buffalo. He asked not to be quoted but provided the following information:

He is the chairman of the Walter J. Mahoney Republican Club (which may or may not really exist). A member of the group does the graphic design, and the pieces are then emailed to reporters and activists. Rodriquez said he is not working with Roger Stone or Michael Captuo, two other Republican operatives working hard to get the anti-Spitzer message out there.

As for who actually gets the mail, Rodriquez says he rented some Conservative email lists and got email addresses for reporters from a friend with the Giuliani campaign.

Here is a new graphic sent out to reporters and operatives yesterday, courtesy of the Walter J. Mahoney Republican Club in Buffalo. It’s basically a poster that outlines the Roger Stone argument (and, for that matter, the Michael Caputo argument) that Eliot Spitzer has been distracted by scandal and ineffective, while the state Senate Republicans have tended to pressing matters like fixing the upstate economy.

The distribution list for this piece, apparently, is the same as the one for Caputo's regular anti-Spitzer emails. (Readers who contacted me wondering about why they’re receiving Caputo’s emails also got this one.)

I responded to the address at the bottom of this flier asking for more information and have yet to hear back.

I've got a story in this week's paper looking at how the state Democrats are unrolling a coordinated response to the continuing Republican probe into Eliot Spitzer's Brunogate problems by branding it the new Whitewater.

“I think you saw in the 90’s a sort of never-ending investigation of Bill Clinton, and it created a widespread national consensus in support of Bill Clinton, and people who were bringing these charges get tossed out of power,” said Democratic consultant Jonathan Rosen, who was recently hired by the state Democratic Party.

Roger Stone, the former CREEP operative who currently works for the Senate Republicans, seemed amused at the analogy. “We also tried to say that Watergate was a third-rate burglary,” he said.

Here’s a link to a new-ish anti-Eliot Spitzer web site called SpitzerFile.com, which is supposed to be a one-stop shop for information (19 pages’ worth) about how the governor financed his 1994 and 1998 campaigns for attorney general.

After calling a number at the bottom of the page, I got to Michael Caputo, a former campaign aide to George H.W. Bush and public relations buddy of Republican operative Roger Stone.

“It’s fairly clear that there is much more afoot in the governor’s mansion,” Caputo told me. “He’s shown his true colors to the electorate since Election Day and especially in the last few weeks.”

In addition to the web site, Caputo has been emailing a compendium of Spitzer-in-trouble stories to reporters and activists under the neutral-sounding title “NYFacts.com.”

I asked Caputo -- who said he isn’t getting paid for his work on this project and that he’s acting purely out of the conviction the press is letting Spitzer get away with something -- whether it wouldn’t have been better to be raising issues about Spitzer’s past before he was actually elected governor.

“Every day is election day when you’re in office,” Caputo said.

As for the notion that he’s doing the dirty of Stone, who is currently working as a paid advisor to the state Senate Republicans, Caputo said, “I don’t work for free. Ever. I never have. If I’m doing Roger’s dirty work, a check is well overdue.”

That odd KT McFarland campaign filing, whose entries for golf with Rudy got broken (twice!) by the News, has another interesting thread. She bought meals at the Union Club for three political consultants: Roger Stone -- best known around here for work with Sharpton and Golisano; Reagan guru Ed Rollins; and Hank Sheinkopf, a Democrat now working for Mark Green, among others.

Also, 162.93 at Cosco for "HALLOWEEN WITCH OUTFIT."

Rollins got the gig, and the $5,000 monthly retainer.

Ben, Jason and Nicole team up to explain why everybody is rooting for Hillary, including Republicans. GOP strategist Nelson Warfield explains that his party "gets a more contemporary devil-figure than Ted Kennedy." And speaking of devil-figures, Hillary's advisor Harold Ickes has an eloquent assessment of his old White House rival. "Dick Morris is a lying cocksucker."

In slightly less colorful language, Republican strategist Roger Stone pens a piece explaining why Al Gore is the new New Nixon. "He is more self-effacing, funnier, cooler, easier-going, yet articulate and firm." Just like Nixon...before Watergate. If Gore studies Nixon, "he could end up in the White House after all."

--Azi Paybarah

So what does Tom Golisano's exit from the race for Governor mean? Aside from denying Roger Stone a house next door to Mike's in Bermuda, of course.

"A good day for Bill Weld," says one GOP official, presuming that this pushes Joe Bruno, reluctantly, to give up on his dreams of a self-financing challenger to Spitzer and get on board.

It also means that the summer's most popular crime series won't be a Golisano-financed fifty-part look at Weld's Decker College mess. (Weld, Faso, and Manning all sent out releases praising Golisano.)

It also, however, sets the stage for a fairly straightforward Republican Primary competition, between a downstate moderate, Weld, and an Upstate conservative, John Faso. Faso might once have hoped to slip in between Weld and Golisano, but in an interview today, he said he's still confident.

"I think I'm much more in tune with the grassroots of the Republican party. I've run in this state. They know who I am," he said. "I think I will win the Conservative line and I think I will be the Republican nominee."

And if that's not enough for you, you can listen to my 8-minute conversation with Faso in .mp3 form, in which he said he didn't expect to campaign much on social issues, that apparently taxes are a big deal, and that the "Albany lobbyist" label won't stop him.

(What do people think about my using more audio? Obviously this one won't top iTunes, and some old-journalism part of me is saying this is a very bad idea. But there doesn't seem to be much reason for me to hoard interview and press-conference tapes.)

To the outside observer, it looked as if Roger Stone was merely running Independence Party candidate  read more »

A happy paradox of politics is that cynical motives can advance idealistic purposes.  read more »

In a sign of heightening tension in the race for Governor, top supporters of George Pataki are accus  read more »

When Roger Stone, the blond and perpetually tannedRepublican consultant, first floated the idea of a  read more »