Charles Barron (Photo: Facebook)

As the Democratic establishment rallied around Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries' congressional campaign, a number of forces weighed in. Among them was the progressive advocacy group MoveOn.org, which sent an email to its supporters declaring Mr. Jeffries opponent, Councilman Charles Barron, was "unfit to serve."

"But what Barron doesn't want you to know is that rather than actually trying to fix problems, he's spent his career specializing in divisive, offensive, and just plain outrageous statements and behavior," the email declared, for example.

The message proceeded to give a small "sampling" of some of the more controversial things Mr. Barron has said in the past, such as, "I want to go up to the closest white person and say, 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health."

The organization received some criticism after the move and it seems that MoveOn truly regrets entering the Democratic primary, which was settled Tuesday of last week with an overwhelming victory by Mr. Jeffries. They sent out another email this evening profusely apologizing again and again for their aggressive rhetoric against Mr. Barron.

"It was offensive and inflammatory—and we shouldn't have sent it," the group's executive director, Justin Ruben, wrote. "On behalf of the MoveOn staff, I apologize to you and to the Brooklyn community."

The entire email is somewhat incredible, and can be viewed below, along with the original "Unfit to serve" one beneath that:

Subject: We apologize
Dear MoveOn member,

Last month, you received an email from MoveOn about Councilman Charles Barron, a candidate for Congress in your district. It was offensive and inflammatory—and we shouldn't have sent it.

On behalf of the MoveOn staff, I apologize to you and to the Brooklyn community.

The email was all too reminiscent of the kind of attacks that have been used by our opponents to divide progressives over and over again—white folks from African Americans, Jews from non-Jews, recent immigrants from descendants of immigrants, etc.

MoveOn is a community of 7 million of us from every corner of our country. There are MoveOn members of every race, religion, and color. We aspire to bring folks together to fight for racial and economic justice and democracy—with respect for everyone. This email did the opposite.

After the email was sent, we couldn't undo the harm it had done. But we wanted to do our best to avoid doing any more damage. So we didn't say anything further about Councilman Barron for the duration of the race, limiting our involvement to communicating the positive reasons that MoveOn members in the district chose to endorse Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries back in April.

We can't take back our actions. But we can do better going forward to make sure that we are uniting, not dividing, our shared communities.

Again, our sincerest apologies. And if you have any thoughts you'd like to share with us about the email or about how MoveOn can be a constructive force in local races and issues in the future, please don't hesitate to email me at [x]@moveon.org.

Thank you for all you do.

Justin Ruben
Executive Director
MoveOn.org Political Action

Subject: Unfit to serve
Dear MoveOn member,

There are some people who don't belong in elected office. Charles Barron is one of those people.

Barron is running for Congress from New York's new 8th District, and with very few voters expected to show up for the primary on June 26, he has a legitimate chance of winning. Retiring corporate Democrat Ed Towns has endorsed Barron to spite his political enemies and Barron is furiously working to hide his inflammatory record.

But what Barron doesn't want you to know is that rather than actually trying to fix problems, he's spent his career specializing in divisive, offensive, and just plain outrageous statements and behavior. Here's just a sampling:

"Out there, they don't know that [Libyan leader Muammar] Qaddafi was our brother. People say 'Didn't he kill all those people?' I say, 'I don't know anything.'"1

When asked about the gay rights movement, Barron said, "I don't consider it a civil rights issue of our time."2

"The biggest terrorist in the world is the government of Israel."3

"I want to go up to the closest white person and say, 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health."4

Barron explained his opposition to gay marriage by saying, "I believe simply in an institution of marriage between a man and a woman. My wife and I believe that. We support every other thing regarding gay rights and we support everything but the marriage thing. We don't want to have people impose their values or beliefs on us and we're not imposing ours on you."5

Barron invited Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe to speak at City Hall despite the fact that, "Amnesty International holds President Mugabe and his government responsible for the attacks against opposition politicians, against members of civilian society, against African farm workers and for creating an environment of fear and intimidation."6

This is the kind of thing we've come to expect from the most offensive tea partier. Those tea partiers, frankly, don't belong in Congress. And neither does Charles Barron.

Can you pass on this email to make sure no voter in the 8th District is fooled by Barron's recent attempts to whitewash his record?

Thanks for all you do.

–Daniel, Levana, and the rest of the team

"MoveOn members are excited to hear that after too many years opposing the interests of the 99%, Rep. Ed Towns has finally decided to retire," says the group in his official statement. "From his vote for CAFTA to his opposition to a free and open Internet, Rep. Towns had long ago stopped fighting for working families so he can support corporate special interests instead."

Based on our inbox alone, it appears as if Mr. Towns was something of a less than beloved figure in the New York political world. When his colleague, longtime Rep. Gary Ackerman retired this year, the announcement was met with a host of good wishes from Mayor Mike Bloomberg on down. There has been no such outpouring today, something MoveOn seems to celebrate.

"Those positions left him with basically no support from the more than 19,000 MoveOn members in the new 8th District, and would have made him unlikely to prevail in June. Towns' retirement is a victory for the 99%, and MoveOn members will continue to support leaders like Eric Griego in New Mexico and Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts who are fighting for the middle class."

It remains to be seen where other progressive groups go now that the race is between Hakeem Jeffries and Charles Barron. Although Mr. Jeffries has been gathering support from labor unions and others, it is hard to get to the left of Mr. Barron, a former Black Panther.

Jamie Kemmerer prepares to make it rain for the cameras. (Photo: Hunter Walker)

Prior to Mitt Romney's fundraiser at the Waldorf Astoria this afternoon, the liberal group MoveOn sent out emails announcing their intention to meet Mr. Romney with "dozens of activists" shortly after 1 p.m. MoveOn's missive promised the "great visuals" of this cadre of demonstrators carrying signs bearing the slogan "Greed Is Good" alongside the infamous picture of Mr. Romney and his former colleagues at the consulting firm Bain Capital playing with dollar bills. When Politicker arrived outside the Waldorf at the appointed hour, we didn't spot a single anti-Romney protester.

After circling around the back of the hotel, we saw a man carrying a stack of the "Greed Is Good" signs. He identified himself as Jamie Kemmerer.

"I'm kind of in charge of it, but it's very last minute," Mr. Kemmerer said of the protest. "You kind of never know how many people are going to show up to these things."

Mr. Kemmerer said he had two main objections to Mr. Romney, who's currently slipped to second place in Republican primary polls behind Newt Gingrich.

"One would probably be the cavalier way in Iowa he said corporations are people and the second thing would be, he made a boatload of money outsourcing jobs," Mr. Kemmerer said.

As we spoke to Mr. Kemmerer, he was approached by Heather Hauswirth, a reporter from Bloomberg TV and another photographer.

"You the only one?" Ms. Hauswirth asked.

Mr. Kemmerer confirmed that he hadn't seen any of his supposed fellow protesters.

"Can I film your sign?" Ms. Haswirth asked him. "Can you hold it up for me?"

"I do have awesome Romney $10,000 bills if you want a shot of those," Mr. Kemmerer said proffering a stack of faux cash referencing the ill-received moment from the most recent debate when Mr. Romney jokingly challenged his opponent, Rick Perry, to a $10,000 bet.

After obliging another reporter's request that he toss the fake bills in the air, Mr. Kemmerer walked back to the main entrance of the hotel in search of his compatriots. He ended up joining with a group of approximately eight other protesters. The middle-aged protesters, who carried signs reading "99%,"were encircled by a group of ten reporters.

"Don't cut teachers, don't cut cops, collect the taxes from the top," one of the protesters chanted.

Mr. Romney was already inside the building. He made his way in slightly earlier than announced in a likely attempt to avoid the demonstrators and press assembled outside. Over the course of the campaign, Mr. Romney has earned a reputation for evading the media. At Mr. Romney's last Waldorf fundraiser last month, we were shoved aside from his SUV as we attempted to ask him a question. This time around, things weren't much different.

After watching the protests for a few more minutes, we made our way inside the the hotel and across the lobby toward Oscar's at the Waldorf, the restaurant where the fundraiser was taking place. Inside a pair of tall glass doors, we spotted a crowd mostly made up of men in dark suits packed shoulder-to-shoulder. As we lingered in the doorway, a security guard for the hotel informed us that press had to wait outside.

On the curb, a police car rolled up alongside us at about 2:30 p.m.

"Do you have any business at the hotel?" one of the officers asked.

We offered up our business card and informed him we were staking out Mr. Romney's fundraiser.

"That's fine, that's not a problem," the office said before driving off.

Moments afterward, guests began streaming from the building. A woman discussed Mr. Romney's speech with a male companion.

"When he said, 'I ran a company, I saved the Olympics,' that's all you have to say," she said.

"Nobody cares about flip-flopping, they all do it," her friend responded.

As the crowd thinned, we saw Mr. Romney being ushered from Oscar's and out toward the exit on the other side of the hotel. We ran around the building, but when we got back to the main entrance there was no sign of Mr. Romney--or the protesters.