Behind the Ron Johnson Website SNAFU: Campaign Used Texas Firm Run By Students

Today everyone in Wisconsin politics had a good laugh at Ron Johnson's latest campaign blunder: for a short time Johnson's website featured a "tourism policy" that was word-for word that of Wyoming Republican governor candidate Colin Simpson, including many references to Wyoming and handing the problem of wolves.

...As governor, I will continue to lead the effort to work with the federal government and to convey the significant economic impact of limiting snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park and carry Wyoming’s argument through both courts of law and public opinion.

...I have the right plan to deal with the wolf problem and bring management of these predators under the control of the people of Wyoming.

The blame quickly fell on Harris Media, a Texas-based firm working for both Simpson and Johnson, as well as several other Republican candidates, such as Rick Scott in Florida and Brian Dubie in Vermont, both running for governor. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel cutely headlined the story "Johnson throws Web vendor to the wolves."  Haas414 showed a bit of the screen capture and wondered "where are Ron Johnson’s web people? Looks like they’re not in Oshkosh, or Wisconsin."

No, they are mostly students at the University of Texas, from the bios on the Harris Media website. The firm's founder, Vincent Harris, was on the online staff of Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign, and then was Internet Director of Texas Senator John Cornyn's re-election campaign. Now Harris is working on a Master's in Government at UT-Austin. Some of the Harris staff are still undergraduates at UT-Austin and elsewhere; others have actual degrees in hand and are working on multiple campaigns. The staff seems spread pretty thin between all the campaign work and their classes, and their other campus activities, such as "College Republicans," "Student Senate," and "Zeta Tau Alpha sorority," so mistakes can happen.

Speaking of mistakes, this week alone Ron Johnson had to reverse himself on drilling for oil in the Great Lakes as well as on wolf management in Wyoming. Let's keep guns out of Johnson's hands for the sake of his feet, and the Senate seat out of his grasp for the sake of all Wisconsin citizens.

- Barry Orton

Comments

[nonheroicvet]

As a Feingold supporter, I am worried that since Russ has added a halo it may become a little tippy on that pedestal.

[bryan Bliss]

Though i love hearing news of their mistakes. the scary thing is even with just a bunch of Texan college kids, Ron Johnson's web presence, social media strategy, frequency and momentum is working better than Russ.
With social media so accessible and powerful for building rapport, instant fact checking and debunking I'm kinda surprised the Russ camp appears so anemic and comparatively quiet online. Russ even has some camera time in his past right? wasn't he on t.v news? (That was before I moved to Madison)

The point is, Russ, just being himself, as smart, eloquent, passionate and strong sense of personal integrity, him doing a simple webcam /youtube update daily would likely be the most effective and least expensive way he would simply disarm the PR team of his corporate shill opponent and their PR hit squad.