Brutus Twists The Knife: The Treachery of Boyd Marcus

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling’s former chief consultant made a great show of defecting from the GOP to support Terry McAuliffe. Now we know what Boyd has been up to: sleazy, dishonest voter suppression.

Democrats routinely hurl vile, fabricated accusations at Republicans for a number of reasons. Saying the Republicans cheat in some way, for instance, can help in fundraising appeals, or in ginning up enthusiasm among the Democrat base, or in providing a fig leaf for the media to hide behind so they can avoid reporting on news that hurts Democrats politically. Often, this is merely a manifestation of psychological projection (i.e., projecting one’s own attitudes and prejudices onto another), rather than any accurate reflection of Republican dirty tricks.

Case in point: every election cycle, Democrats seize on some innocuous communication by a Republican as “evidence” of a voter suppression effort, but in the reality of the 2013 Virginia elections, the reverse is true.

Democrats this year have been targeting robocalls to key conservative activist lists with lies and disinformation about Ken Cuccinelli. The purpose of these calls is to discourage conservative turnout by telling these activists that, among other things, Ken supports taxpayer financed abortions and the expansion of Obamacare in Virginia. We’ve been getting reports of these types of calls for the last week from some of the most committed pro-life conservatives we know. Now, as reported by our mother blog, Virginia Virtucon, Del. Scott Lingamfelter got one of these calls and posted about it on Facebook:

About 25 minutes ago (7:24 PM 3 November) the Democratic Party of Virginia dropped a robo-call (that they said they paid for in the recording) at MY house to try to tell ME that Ken Cuccinelli supports Obamacare and public financing of abortion!!! Virginia, pa-leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzz understand that the party that wants Terry McAuliffe to be your governor will flat lie about anything! If you want proof that they will say ANYTHING to gain power over you and your life, you need go no further than the “robo-lies” they are sending around Virginia this Sunday evening. They are shameless in their tactics. (I guess they are trying to suppress GOP voters.)

The first question I have to ask about this is, where does the DPVA get such accurate lists of core GOP activists? Well, let’s revisit some recent history, shall we?

As we reported back in August, Lt. Gov. Bolling’s chief consultant Boyd Marcus quit to go work for Terry McAuliffe (or, as we put it more colorfully then, “The out of work and destitute GOP consultant last seen scraping the bottom of Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling’s funding barrel has finally hit rock bottom and been forced to prostitute himself to Terry McAuliffe, the only john with enough cash to afford him”). Marcus offered up a glowing endorsement of T-Mac, saying “Terry is the clear choice for mainstream conservatives.” Having completely ruined his chances of ever securing a Republican Party of Virginia contract again, Marcus must now ingratiate himself to his new masters. What better way to do so than providing the holy grail of grassroots politics, accurate lists?

Do I have forensic proof that the fingerprints all over these well-targeted calls match those of Boyd Marcus? No, but we do know Marcus was able to build substantial and accurate lists for Bill Bolling and others, and that, being on McAuliffe’s payroll, he’d be expected to use those lists to McAuliffe’s advantage. Clearly they aren’t useful in targeting potential supporters. But they would be useful in suppressing opponents, and are probably well worth the at least $20,000 McAuliffe has paid Marcus, according to VPAP.

Which ever way tomorrow’s election turns out, (and here’s why I still think Ken will win) the coming days will bring clarity to what has happened over the last year of this campaign among Virginia Republicans. And folks, I’m sorry to say, the treachery of Boyd Marcus is just the tip of the iceberg.