Unethical Behavior Taints Novick Campaign
January 18, 2008
The old saying goes “You can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep.” For Oregon Democratic Senate candidate Steve Novick, the company he is keeping, in this case his Online Director Liz Kimmerly, brings into serious question Novick’s ethics and moral compass. David Steves at the Eugene Register Guard, broke a story about how Kimmerly created and heads a puppet organization barely a month old that is holding endorsement interviews (presumably to endorse her employer) this weekend:
A newly formed chapter of Progressive Democrats of America is interviewing three Senate candidates Saturday—including one who is the boss of the chapter’s coordinator.
Liz Kimmerly isn’t just the PDA state coordinator in Oregon, a position she accepted a little more than a month ago when the chapter formed. She also does online campaign work for Democratic Senate candidate Steve Novick.
Which could make the other invited Democratic candidates, Jeff Merkley and Candy Neville, a little skeptical about whether they’ll get a fair shot at the group’s endorsement.
I expect these kind of tactics from Karl Rove and the GOP but Steve Novick? I would expect that a truly progressive Democrat would have more respect for ethics and civil society than to go about creating puppet organizations run by staffers. I know Novick can’t compete in the money game and his former allies in organized labor have turned on him by supporting Merkley but are they really so hard up for support that they need to pull unethical stunts like this? If I were running I would rather quit the race than cross ethical lines in a poor attempt to fake organic grassroots support.
This action begs several questions
1. Why is the Online Director for Novick creating a group having an endorsements meeting for the candidate she works for? How can Jeff Merkley, Candy Neville or any candidate be guaranteed a fair process when the group is run by a paid staffer for Steve Novick?
2. How complicit is Steve Novick in this huge breech of ethics by his staff? Did Novick know? Did his campaign? Did they put her up to it or just tacitly approve of these immoral tactics? If she is rouge (which I don’t think she is, considering Novick accepted the interview invitation), what actions will they take to hold her accountable for what is clearly an unethical conflict of interest?
If she was acting alone, Novick needs to fire Kimmerly immediately, and if Novick was complicit voters should punish him for this unethical Rove-like behavior at the ballot box this May.
Blogged with Flock
Tags: OR-Sen, Steve Novick, 2008 Senate Democratic Primary, Jeff Merkley, Candy Neville, Ethics, Karl Rove
Entry Filed under: OR-Sen. .
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bdunn
atleastimhonest
1.
Sean ulvihill | January 18, 2008 at 7:09 am
Seems suspicious that you would accuse someone of unethical behavior and then not seek any cooment from them, nor anyone else within you article that you accuse. Your article is one-sided, fails to allow the reader achance to understand the full story, and and in the end… it says more about YOUR otives for publishing it and posting it to ORegon REDDIT than it does about the Novick campaign. The title of your article is a severe embellishment of the as-yet-unsubstantiated claims in your story. Articles like your give blogginf a bad name and ‘real journalists’ use articles like yours to demonstrate why FAIR discussion and REPORTING should be of their class only. Now I am all for blogging, and I think it represents journalism, but if I spent 15 minutes scraping your background… it would become evident that you are basically a Jeff Merkley hack that is likely carrying out one of HIS STAFFER’s explicit tasks to SLING MUD. Should others thake that information and post a blog somewhere with the headline, MERKLEY CAMPAIGN FEELS COMFORTABLE TRASHING PEOPLE WITHOUT GETTING THEIR COMMENTARY?
Please…. is the Merkley camppaign so desperate that it can’t take it when a fellow Democrat works hard to raise voters’ awareness about our upcoming election? How do you know what her motives were? All you can do is surmise that is ‘raises questions’. Actually, that lead into a veiled accusation is classice ROVIAN politics. I would expect that from the GOP, but not from the Merkley campaign. Note: I have no idea whether you are a Merkey hack, but I’m drumbeating the accusation simply to make the point of this reply more effective to you and others who read your trash.
Sean Mulvihill
2.
bdunn | January 18, 2008 at 7:25 am
Well Sean thanks for playing, but the article I did cite did reach the Novick campaign for comment. Nor did I post the article on Reddit. Kinda ruins the premise or your entire post no?
3.
Sean ulvihill | January 18, 2008 at 7:35 am
Yes, the article you cited reached the Novick campoaign for comment, and the author of the article you cited PUBLISHED THAT COMMENT and did so like a true proifessional journalist. Meanwhile your citation to that article is the only FACT in YOUR article which is basically a scrape of the READERS’ COMMENTS’ to the original journaistic piece. So, you are taking all the mud thrown by fellow Merkley hacks and repurposing it as a new article. The test of whether YOUR article is good journalism is whether YOU have sought fair responses to the NEWLY FORMED QUESTIONS YOU enumerated. You didn’t. And the article didn’t jump onto Oregon Reddit by itself. Please tell me you have no idea how it got there. Hmmmm
As to the premise I built, it’s solid. You reported READERS’ comments to an otherwise fair piece of journalism, but you framed your piece without telling your readers that you did not YOURSELF seek a response from the Novivk campaign to the trashing Merkeley staffers’ comments.
Pathetic.
4.
bdunn | January 18, 2008 at 7:48 am
I didn’t seek a comment from Ralph Waldo Emerson either; should I have informed my readers? I never claimed to get Novick’s comment or be a journalist. I am a commentator and if you look on the Steves piece one of the comments I parrot is my own.
But how about you respond to the substance of the unethical behavior by the Novick campaign rather than fling indiscriminate ad homien attacks at me?
5.
Kevin | January 18, 2008 at 8:08 am
Me thinks Sean doth protest too much. Occam’s Razor would seem to indicate that he’s a Novick supporter miffed that this serious ethical lapse by a paid member of Novick’s campaign has seen the light of day.
6.
Sarah Lane | January 18, 2008 at 8:09 am
What’s the point of seeking the endorsement when the state coordinator works for Novick? Merkley and Neville could continue with the interviews, but for ethical reasons Kimmerly should have no part in the process.
7.
Ben DuPree | January 18, 2008 at 8:28 am
Agreed, Sarah. Seems like a big conflict of interest.
So, was Kimmerly working for Steve before she took on this PDA responsibility? Based on the time frame, it would seem so…
8.
ameeks | January 18, 2008 at 12:54 pm
What a pathetic attempt at a scam. The conflict of interest created here hits any fair minded person like a ton of bricks. How anyone can claim that this endorsement will not be prejudiced by Kimmerly’s presence as coordinator is beyond me.
I strongly believe that how a person campaigns is indicative of the values they will bring to office. Anyone willing to blur ethical lines into obscurity on the campaign trail cannot be trusted to uphold a truly progressive code of values in government.
9.
lestatdelc | January 19, 2008 at 1:33 am
For those doubting the problems with what Liz tried to pull, they better check out the latest on BlueOregon before they climb out on that limb with the Novick staffers crumbling professionalism.
10.
Adam Phiri | April 13, 2008 at 3:04 am
Collegues could you kindly assist me in answering these question;
a) what are the efects of unethical bihaviour by a journalist?
b)Analyse the racist aspects in the way news is reported in Africa dailes?
C) Discuss challenges reporters face when dealing with controvesial issues and sources.
I appreciate in advance for yourjind help.