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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Dick Lugar Needs To Fire His ‘New Media’ Guy

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  April 19th, 2012 at 01:21 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

“For everyone, have you given to Richard Mourdock yet? The best way to punish pay to play new media hacks is fund the guy they are attacking.”

I don’t know who ‘starzandstripez’ is, but the person has an account at RedState and is a new media consultant.

I know the person is a new media consultant because the person is exhibiting all the same bad habits idiots exhibit when posing as people who “get” new media and really have no freaking clue.

The account has been active for just over a month and in that time has posted one positive post about Chris Fields in Minnesota, one attack on Shelley Berkley in Nevada, and seven attacks on Richard Mourdock in Indiana, the bulk of which have poured in over the past two days. There’s also one completely out of place post in opposition to meth laws in Oregon.

In other words, who is on the payroll of Chris Fields, Dean Heller, Dick Lugar, and Pharma reps in Oregon?

This is a bad new media consultant trying to earn his or her keep. Why bad?

Well, in ten out of eleven posts the person clearly is not paying attention to formatting, which suggests s/he is dropping oppo posts into RedState via cut and paste.

The person does not stick around to engage the community, but shows up randomly to drop hit jobs.

And the latest hit jobs are timed to reflect Dick Lugar email blasts attacking Richard Mourdock with a number of frivolous attacks.

The consultant’s rapid recent pace suggests the Dick Lugar campaign is deeply, deeply nervous, as they should be. It also suggests that Dick Lugar’s online grassroots operation is as badly out of touch with conservative activists as Dick Lugar himself — a man running for the Senate in Indiana who does not even live there.

For the rest of you who want to be new media consultants, here are some basic tips:

  • Make it look authentic.
  • Try to at least appear to be part of the community in which you hope to engage.
  • Expand your presence beyond just your client’s work, or it sends a strong message you are pay to play always.
  • and don’t try coming to a place supporting Richard Mourdock and crap all over our site.

For everyone, have you given to Richard Mourdock yet? The best way to punish pay to play new media hacks is fund the guy they are attacking.

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COMMENTS

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  • Christopher Estep

    In all fairness, the formatting with Redstate’s implementation of WP is dicey at best, at least for me. What the editor says I should be able to do is not what comes out when I preview and post.

  • gekster

    She said yesterday he/she was spamming the site.

  • streiff

    what is “dicey”?

  • tngal

    Looks like EE caught you laying down some lame cards, starzandstripez. You should learn the rules of the game if you’re going to play:)

  • Viet71

    Mostly Dem interlopers.

    starsandstripez apparently decided to jump on the bandwagon.

  • acat

    Good for her!

    I’ll claim to have wondered about starz, but to not have put together the “new media hack” job description…

    In /. terms …

    1) Gain write access to major conservative web sites
    2) Copy/paste insipid “diaries” / “articles” on behalf of clients
    3) ?????
    4) Profit!

    Mew

  • acat

    We argue about (erm… “loudly discuss”?) other things during the ‘off years’.

    And yes, trolls and opposition poseurs are always a part of the scenery.

    Mew

  • http://boldcolor.blogspot.com/ Paula

    The spacing issue. I have spent way too much time wrestling with the spacing between paragraphs, attempting to employ a number of html gymnastics (with my limited html skills) to make the actual post look like the preview. For whatever reason, WP likes to crunch everything together and eliminate spacing between paragraphs. I usually run into problems when I’m inserting a video or photo.

    The posts Erick is discussing seem to have spacing issues. If that’s the only issue with formatting, I can sympathize.

    But of course, the content is more than enough to make the point Erick is trying to make without even mentioning the formatting.

  • Christopher Estep

    I’ve found paragraph formatting to be extremely inconsistent. Sometimes there will be a blank space between paragraphs and sometimes not. I’ve had all kinds of issues with bullet points as well.

    As I said, “for me”. I use chrome so maybe that has some issues as well.

    My only point of my comment is that lousy formatting may not necessarily be entirely indicative of a “consultant” or troll.

    Not that I’m defending the guy. Lugar needs to go for reasons aplenty.

  • gekster

    :) ;) :)

  • gekster

    If it’s just text, it works 95% of the time.

  • redwood

    Your right Lugar needs to go and ‘pay for play’ is just another troll.

    But formatting, really?

  • streiff

    and I’ve never had those problems. Do you edit in “visual” or “html” mode? Also if you compose in Word and paste you will have lots of glitches.

  • streiff

    compose in the “html” window, not the “visual” window, or compose in Notepad/Wordpad and paste into the “html” window.

  • gekster

    what is Chrome.

  • acat

    a lack of attention to formatting, to where the line breaks are, to how the entire article *flows*, or .. in starz’ specific case, arguments that are laid out in ways that seem to ignore the target audience *definitely* matters.

    I’d recommend reading some of the regular writers at Red State. Not the front-pagers, the “usual suspects” like Kowalski or Aesthete or Justin Spagnolo and see how their formatting of both the argument and the line breaks differs from starz’ dribblings.

    Better yet, compare starz’ dribblings to similar copy/paste jobs by chrysostom or nikitas3.

    Mew

  • Christopher Estep

    It’s google’s browser.

  • Christopher Estep

    I’m a software engineer. Yeah, I could use HTML, but that’s nasty. :)

    And I don’t cut and paste anything. If I were ever to use an editor to pre-write a post, I’d use Notepad to make sure it was clean of formatting, but I don’t do even that.

  • streiff

    is the cleanest way to compose in WordPress. The “visual” window does have problems but it has then at WordPress.com blogs and in blogspot.

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    I became a big fan of Mourdock’s after hearing him at RSG03 where he gave a heartfelt speech and hung out with the attendees for Q&A, so I was somewhat biased. I was thisclose to asking him if he was a paid op. Just glad he’s been exposed.

    davenj1, did you hear?

  • acat

    Before you ask, read my profile.

    HTML is cumbersome, but calling it “nasty” is … silly. It’s no more “nasty” than XML or Reverse Polish Notation or most interpreted computer languages. (yes, including Java)

    Mew

  • http://boldcolor.blogspot.com/ Paula

    As Christopher said, it’s inconsistent. It will look right when I preview the post, but when I actually post it, the line spacing is missing. Sometimes. Then I end up having to go into the html to insert line spacing,code which is a pain.

    Usually, I’m working from my Chromebook, so I’m limited on outside options such as notepad. I usually just wrestle with it and grumble a lot. (I do wonder if it’s a Chrome-y type of glitch).

    But again, the point is that bad formatting isn’t necessarily the mark of a spammer.

  • Bill S

    … is right after a YouTube video. Other than that, I’ve seen no problems with spacing. And I’m using Chrome for Mac.

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    I use Firefox and have cut and pasted from word into HTML mode and then added whatever code was needed. I’ve created from scratch in the HTML mode. I usually go back and forth between the visual and HTML to check how it looks. Finally, I make sure I view the diary before posting, do a once over (or sometimes twice or thrice) to tweak any mistakes and make sure all the links are working.

    The only problem I have on a regular basis is creating links from within HTML mode. They disappear on me when I view, so I’ve started using my own cheat codes that I keep handy for when I want to put a link in a comment which seems to work fine,

    I hope this is helpful.

  • gekster

    :)

  • Christopher Estep

    I write backend and frontend systems in C# and C++ which is why I think HTML is nasty.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    .

  • conservativerock5

    Dang, Lugar has to be blushing now.

    By the way, I forget, who is Erick supporting in Oklahoma, Stenberg or Bruning?

  • uncmike

    you will find he’s posting the same crapola on other sites. I detest Lugar and hope he loses. I hear Mitch Daniels and John McCain have or are making videos supporting Lugar so he must really be running scared. Looks like the insiders like McCain are trying to protect other Senate Rinos. Disappointed to hear Daniels is also a Lugar supporter. Thanks for this post Erick.

  • avagreen

    http://www.bing.com/search?q=%2bstarzandstripez&FORM=RCRE

    Typical teenage interests and questionable IQ and mores if you look all the way through this list. Go gown to the 7th link and then click on his name to see his level of maturity. LOL!

    Don’t think this guy would be hired by anyone to do anything. He’s just been fed by liberal teachers to believe the wrong truths about politics. Whatz nu?

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    EE has written a number of diaries on Bruning. Here’s a list.

    here

  • gekster

    My guess is he’s a high (literally) school kid, or just got into collage.
    Some of the blogs and posts attributrd to his name would get banned at a decent site like this one.
    On a scale of 1.>5, with 5 being DailyKos, they’re about 4,8+.
    I can see why he doesn’t reply, because if he talks that way normally, he would get banned in 1 day, if not whithin the hour.

  • TxCon

    as “conservative” Rick Perry has endorsed David DewCrist over Ted Cruz. Tough position for people who supported Perry and support Cruz.

  • conservativerock5

    I support Stenberg as well

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    endorsements usually don’t mean squat.

    I am supporting Cruz for one reason, I went on his website and he had quotes from Milton Friedman. That would make him one of maybe two or three senators who have actually read Milton Friedman.

  • jyalai

    HTML has all of those nasty tags. You never know if you missed one until its too late. I am speaking as one who has done very little web development to this point. Then again, in my early years, I used to get mad at forgetting semi-colons at the end of my statements and not matching curly brackets.

  • jyalai

    I think you meant Nebraska :-) )

  • TxCon

    of SPECTER was unforgivable to some.

  • cbartlett

    at our local university. He is really smart, a true conservative and a patriot! Jim DeMint and his Senate Conservative’s Fund are backing him – sure hope they can help him against Dewhurst’s millions and the GOP establishment endorsements. I would sure hate to see Dewhurst win just because he has more money to fund TV spots.

  • TxCon

    Then all bets are off. Praying for a Cruz victory

  • Mr. Sandman

    I can say without a doubt that Lugar was once a conservative, but now, he’s a dyed in the wool Washington con-sort-of…it’s time for him to go.

  • uncmike

    is the best candidate from what I’ve read. I don’t live in Texas, but if I did, I would vote for him. I appreciate your comment.

  • Argentum

    to people who head off to Washington DC.

    I saw a quote recently, don’t remember who it was by, but it was good:

    “It’s not so much that power corrupts, as that it attracts the pathologically corruptible.”

    I think it’s a bit of both, honestly.

  • http://conservativemormonmom.blogspot.com ew88

    I find this hysterical- I enjoyed it immensely. Liberals can’t hide their spots.

  • davenj1

    But again, name one thing Mourdock has done- not said, but done. Let me reiterate: the Senate is within reach. Lugar is a lock over Donnelly. Mourdock is not. The situation is even more pronounced now given the situation in Maine and the possibility of losing a seat in MA. Why leave it to chance? Why even make it close?

    If starz is an operative for Lugar, then he needs to state so upfront and not hide behind a screen name. And if he is, then present his case for Lugar and answer comments and criticisms. Either way, I think people do not have to walk lockstep with EE and his particular endorsements to make comments or entries on Redstate.

  • davenj1

    I do the same thing on dailykos. Drives liberals nuts. The best way to combat it is through ignorance. Just make a pact now: no one read or comment on anything by starzandstripes. He/she will eventually go away.

  • kowalski

    This is one of those threads where comments should just be disallowed – Redstate should start doing that more often. The original post was sufficient and nobody needed to hear about problems or perceived problems with WordPress, C+, C#, HTML, or anything else.

    One of the big problems with the web is that people talk too much in the first place. Concentrate. Focus power. Make a statement as such and just let it stand every once in a while, no comments allowed.

  • kowalski

    And I’m reaching the point where I’m thinking of pulling the plug on New Media entirely – because it’s a gigantic, zero-sum, zero-pay waste of time.

    Delete this post and delete all the rest of them, too. Go back to making a statement every once in a while and having it stand on its own, for a change.

  • checkmate2012

    after viewing it etc. But still agree with you! LOL.

  • acat

    Never got beyond ANSI-C in my code weasel days.

    As for HTML, there’s a very simple answer. Save it to a local file using the text editor of your choice and preview it. Think of it as the HTML equivalent of running lint.

    Mew

  • acat

    Clearly, I’m not in lockstep…

    (Cheshire grin)

  • acat

    The trouble is, voters gotta look for the signs that a pol has “gone native” … but most are satisfied that, if they don’t hear of a major scandal, everything’s fine.

    Mew

  • acat

    ‘s your choice.

    You’re right, people do talk too much… but so what? ‘s been true since people were invented.

    Mew

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    but Indiana can do better than Lugar. I already commented on why Lugar should be replaced here, and you addressed none of those votes.

    Mourdock has a record in business before becoming the State Treasurer just like other of our newly elected Senators like Mike Lee and Ron Johnson. They’re certainly doing okay. As far as Lugar’s record, yes he has one, and it’s gotten progressively worse the longer he stays in office. Judging by the groups that have endorsed Mourdock, I’m not alone in supporting him.

  • davenj1

    so is there really a need to address the votes you listed? Again, as I said elsewhere, given his tenure there are inevitably votes over time that will p#@% some conservative off. I am sure Ted Kennedy’s votes at some time p#@%ed off liberals. I subscribe to the school that you run the most electable candidate and that is Lugar. Please don’t be misled by Utah 2010 when the GOP could have dressed up a donkey and won or Wisconsin which was a perfect storm that put Johnson in office (and yes, both are performing fine…now).
    And interest groups mean little to me. I don’t make decisions because the Club for Growth supports someone, or any other group or person. Whether Indiana can do better than Lugar is a question best left to the voters of Indiana. I am willing to support Mourdock should he prevail in the primary. Are you willing to support Lugar if he prevails?

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    I’m surprised you had to ask. I vote conservative in the primary, GOP in the general. I’ve voted Democrat exactly once – my first vote ever cast for Carter which I regret to this day. Barring some complete identity change, I don’t plan to ever vote Democrat again in my life, so the answer is yes.

  • acat

    Utah could easily have returned Bennett, a Republican.

    Utah chose to replace him with Lee, a Conservative Republican.

    Your assertion that Lugar is the best needs some proof. What makes him so great?

    Mew

  • davesinsanantonio

    don’t read ‘em!

    Your choice!

  • Ausonius

    I have said it before, and a few people criticized me and one said just leave if you don’t like it, (Sigh!), but RedState’s posting methods are primitive.

    Especially for comments: diaries are somewhat better, but are not nearly as easy as other websites I use. e.g. Why can we not we have an Italic button, and a BOLD button, why do we need to type in to make something bold?!

    Very primitive!

    I write things at a small classical-music website based in Australia: that site is light-years beyond RedState in ease of use.

  • Ausonius

    I just noticed that the one sentence above complaining about lacking a BOLD button now makes no sense, because I typed in the code for BOLD without putting anything in the middle of the code.

    STRONG

    And now I cannot fix it! :)

  • ardendulou

    The Dick Lugar spam mailings (snail mail style) has picked up in the last 2 weeks. I see this as his broad strategy to somehow carpet smear bomb Mourdock over the last month. He has done zero to engage the voters but as a typical politician, this is his ploy.

  • ihateliberals

    This keeps him in at least a RINO category. But the fact that there is such an attack on his competition and that he isn’t always so conservative I would go with Erick on this one and support Richard Mourdock. Besides that I just don’t like incumbents. Most Senators and Representatives have spent far too much time on the Hill. I know the argument is tht it takes time on the Hill to learn how it works etc. I say that is the problem. Once they learn how it works we lose their attention and they go do what they want instead of what the people want. If congress won’t vote for term limits thenit is up to us the voting public to impose them at the polls.

  • YnotNOW

    And why you believe it is true. If you have a solid foundation, you can discuss the ins and outs of specifics without getting led too far astray.

  • gwbramhall

    I have problems with my text looking anything like
    what I have written in the comment section. I’m trying
    to figure it out by keeping my lines of text short as
    I’m doing here. Sometimes I forget and it ends up
    looking like an idiot wrote i,t which is not too far from
    the truth. Another thing is thst I am a terrible speller.
    I wish these sites had a spell check program, that
    would help a lot. What I do is copy and paste my
    ccomment to my e-mail program and run the spell
    check there before copying it again and pasting it
    again back here or where ever I’m at. The trouble is
    that changes the font in some way and often screws
    up the spacing and I see words run together that in
    my writing were at the end of a line of text but are
    not when I actually post the comment. Another anoying
    problem I have is getting signed on at certain sites to
    be able to comment or even read the comments. It
    seems like such a simple thing to have a link clearly
    visible to get you enabled, but in some cases I get
    completely frustrated in trying to figure out how to do
    it. Glad to see that I’m not the only one with issues.
    I feel a little self conscious about it, but I enjoy expressing
    my feelings on the many different subjects that come
    up on-line. I used to write letters to the editor at the NY
    Times and got so mad at them printing several letters
    on the other side of the story and never mine or rarely
    any one else’s. I finally stopped trying and gave up my
    subscription. They are such idiots!

  • arthurjake

    I think it is the lack of accountability. Reminds me of the Eddie Murphy movie where he gets elected to Congress. He snuck in because he had a name similar to a dead incumbents name. People don’t take the time to research the people they continue to reelect and hold them accountable for there records. Cliff Stearns is my congressman and has been for a long time. Every so often he votes for something goofy but for the most part he stays in step with my values. I know this because I take the time to research his voting records. Most people just don’t. It is why McGramps wasn’t beaten his last primary challenge. He pretended to be conservative long enough to get the nomination again.

  • texasref

    that Mitch Daniels is a Dick Lugar supporter.

    You can’t get any more tea party conservative than Dick Lugar.

    (that last sentence is sarcasm for those of you who missed it)

  • ATGinCT

    NT

  • ATGinCT

    So while it’s not great he is showing some loyalty

  • darrellmaurina

    LOL!!!!