By Hunter Walker 10/15/12 4:50pm

Pollster Panic

A chart showing the results of the Gallup/USA Today poll. (Photo: USAToday.com)

RNC Says Memo Blaming Tied Poll on ‘Flaws’ in Gallup Methods Shows Obama Campaign Is ‘Panicked’

After a new poll out today from Gallup and USA Today showed Mitt Romney pulling ahead of President Barack Obama by strengthening his standing with likely female voters in key swing states, the Obama campaign fired back by releasing a memo written by Josh Benenson of the Benenson Strategy Group consulting firm criticizing “deep flaws in Gallup’s likely voter screen.” Tim Miller, deputy communications director at the Republican National Committee, told Politicker the Obama campaign’s memo shows they are “panicked” with battleground state polls tightening in the wake of President Obama’s widely panned performance in the first presidential debate.

“Since the president’s disastrous debate performance, the panicked Obama campaign’s message has vacillated from Big Bird to false character attacks on Mitt Romney to now nitpicking the crosstabs of bad polls,” Mr. Miller said. “Litigating polls won’t help the president fix his two central problems: he can’t defend his economic record and he has offered no plan for getting people back to work in a 2nd term.” Read More

By Hunter Walker 8/29/12 9:26pm

War Roomgate

Lis Smith and Tim Miller in Tampa. (Photo: Twitter.com/SeanSpicer)

Obama Campaign Says GOP Staffer Tried to ‘Crash’ Their RNC Office

TAMPA, FL — Along with all the red staters at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, there are several Obama For America staffers who are monitoring the events from an office they’re calling the “Romney Economics: Wrong for the Middle Class War Room” and one Republican National Committee staffer has repeatedly attempted to get behind enemy lines and into the Obama campaign’s convention outpost. This morning, Obama For America Director of Rapid Response Lis Smith tweeted that Tim Miller, the digitally savvy deputy communications director of the Republican National Committee had tried and failed to infiltrate the Democrats’ convention war room.

“@Timodc’s attempts to crash our office have been even less successful than @MittRomney’s reinvention convention. Not an easy feat,” Ms. Smith wrote, referring to Mr. Miller by his Twitter handle.  Read More

By Hunter Walker 6/15/12 2:04pm

Binary Burglary

Matt Ortega (Photo: Facebook)

Democratic Web Consultant Accuses The RNC Of Stealing His Code

Matt Ortega, a former Democratic National Committee employee and the deputy director for digital at the D.C. Democratic consulting firm “{new} partners,” is accusing the Republican National Committee of stealing his CSS code for a website attacking President Barack Obama. The RNC’s website, “Obama’s New Idea’s To Fix The Economy,” was launched yesterday following the president’s campaign framing speech. It features a blank page with a blinking cursor to imply the president has no ideas to improve the country’s economic situation. Mr. Ortega claims the code used to make “Obama’s New Idea’s To Fix The Economy” was stolen from a site he made last September called “Exciting Things About Tim Pawlenty” that also featured a blank slate with a blinking cursor that Mr. Ortega says was an effort to lampoon the erstwhile presidential candidate “for being boring.”

“When the RNC launched this website today, a friend of mine IM’ed it to me and it was very clear the idea was the same idea I had done,” Mr. Ortega told The Politicker yesterday evening. I started examining their code just to look at it, because digital nerds like me, we tend to do that sort of thing. And I was like, wait a minute, this is my code. I did this from scratch by hand.” Read More