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