Counterproductive Katie Merrill seems to have been outdone by Ellen Tauscher's congressional staff, whose website scrubbing has traveled wide and far through the internet tubes.
While it is quite clear that Tauscher's current team only knows how to be counterproductive online, the larger problem is that her campaign should lack the ability to hire a netroots consultant who knows better. Working for Tauscher would be a career killer for a blogosphere coordinator and while the money might be good, it would be likely to cost other clients (a Democratic candidate would be a fool to waste money on an internet firm facing the wrath of the progressive blogosphere for selling out in this marquee race).
Not only has the fallout from this week's missteps catapulted a primary campaign, but in all likelihood it prevented Ellen Tauscher from hiring anyone more productive than Katie Merrill.
UPDATE This is not what Tauscher wants to be reading in the Hotline on a Monday morning:
Rep. Ellen Tauscher's (D-CA) vote for the Iraq war, her perceived coziness with K Street and Pres. Bush, have already made her netroots target number one for '08's primary season.
The very cluelessness, though, that makes a staffer go through the Congresswoman's web site and scrub any pictures of her with Bush or Lieberman, thinking it'll help, will make a fool out of any internet consultant who tries to step in. Hiring an internet consultant for the very purpose of insulating the candidate from the internet is a pretty good way to end someone's career. You'd have to be awfully cynical about politics and pretty contemptuous of the netroots to take that job. Some people might want "window dressing" on their resume, but it's not going to help Tausher convince anyone, and it's going to make whoever takes the job a reputation as a cynical hack.
