More About Chuck and craigslist

(Sorry, this is a long one, but it is thorough and worth a read if you are curious about this topic)

An anonymous commenter to my last post provided the text of the bogus craigslist post, in which someone claiming to be from the Pennacchio campaign offers to pay canvassers $7/hr.

Senate Campaign Help Wanted
________________________________________
Reply to: job-153423369@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-04-21, 11:54PM EDT


Our grassroots campaign is looking for individuals who seek to stand up for the issues that they believe in. Canvassers needed now, before the May 16, 2006 Primary. www.chuck2006.com

Apply to e-mail listed.
• Job location is PA
• Compensation: 7 dollars/hour
• This is a part-time job.
• This is at a non-profit organization.
• no -- Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• no -- Please, no phone calls about this job!
• no -- Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.
• no -- Reposting this message elsewhere is NOT OK.

153423369
________________________________________

http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/npo/153423369.html, 4-27-06

Unfortunately, when typing in that url, a craigslist page is brought up stating that the post was removed:

Also, there is no cached version of this particular page that I can find anywhere. It is therefore unclear to me how much of the anonymous commenter's post was actually on craigslist. Not to be rude, but for all I know, the anonymous commenter could have written in the payment information by him/herself. When Googling "153423369@craigslist.org" two pages come up: the aforementioned page and one entitled "philadelphia nonprofit jobs classifieds and want ads - craigslist" The latter page is a printer friendly list of recent nonprofit jobs on Philadelphia's craigslist.
This list (continuously updated) makes no reference to Chuck Pennacchio's campaign. There are several posts offering payment to get Democrats elected, but none is affiliated with Chuck's campaign. Fortunately, there is a cached version of this page from Wednesday, April 26th, which does list the post in question:If you don't feel like enlarging the image above, the posting reads as follows:

Senate Campaign Help Wanted -- Fri Apr 21 -- (PA)
email: anon-153423369@craigslist.org

Our grassroots campaign is looking for individuals who seek to stand up for the issues that they believe in. Canvassers needed now, before the May 16, 2006 Primary. www.chuck2006.com Apply to e-mail listed. no -- Please, no phone calls about this job! no -- Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests. no -- Reposting this message elsewhere is NOT OK.

(This is also available on SimplyHired.com.) This text is identical to that which the anonymous commenter submitted to The Cajun Jew, except it curiously omits any reference to payment. However, the printer friendly version is not always as complete as the original posting, so the original posting--for which I have no cached view--could have included the payment information. Until someone submits a cached version of the page in question, it will remain difficult to judge these allegations fairly.

There is one more way to test the authenticity of the bogus craigslist post. Does the writing style above match that of previous, legitimate craigslist postings for the Pennacchio campaign (i.e. were they written by the same person)? The Pennacchio campaign (or someone claiming to be from that group) posted a request for phonebanking volunteers on March 17th, 2006. This post remains available today

The text of this post reads (formatted for space):

Help get a progressive Democrat elected

---

Reply to: comm-142825397@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-03-17, 4:55PM EST

The Pennacchio for Pennsylvania campaign is looking for volunteers to help with phonebanking. The primary election is May 16, and we need your help! We are going to be contacting Philadelphia area voters to find out who they support for the primaries, and providing them with information about the Pennacchio campaign if they're interested. Help get a progressive, pro-choice, pro-labor, pro-universal health care Democrat elected. Go here for more info: http://www.chuck2006.com

this is in or around Phila
no -- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
142825397

This post is clearly written by a different person.

1. The email addresses are different--then again I have three email addresses, so it could be from the same person.
   
2. More importantly, take a look at the two writing styles. The bogus post--the one offering payment--refers to the "Primary." The volunteer post refers to the "primaries." I would expect that the same person to be consistent with capitalization and pluralization of the same word. I might have written both in the past, but I'm not a campaign official who would post this sort of thing on craigslist and presumably be consistent at it.
3. The March 17th post includes "http://" in the link to Chuck's website, while the bogus post does not.
4. The bogus post (as submitted by the commenter) includes a bullet point list, while the March 17th post does not.
   

Other differences probably exist, but this is a short list. Of greater interest it the fact that the Pennacchio campaign claims that they do not post on craigslist at all. According to LizM:

I remember seeing Alan [Sandals] offering $15.00 per page to collect petitions. But we don't post on Craig's List, we don't pay our staff, our CONTROL Chiefs, our circulators, our canvassers, our flyer squadron, our designers, our organizers, our rapid response, our bloggers, our photographers, our musicians, our officers, our surrogates, or anyone else who does the work of this campaign. We don't have to. Our petition drive was 100% volunteer, just like the rest of our efforts. Alan's, not so much. Alan's campaign is a conventional media campaign, largely self-funded, but on a much smaller scale than Casey's.

So if Pennacchio's campaign didn't write either of the craigslist posts, then who did? I can see three possibilities:

1. The Pennacchio campaign wrote them. I don't see this as likely at all--see why here. They would have nothing to gain and much to lose by hypocritically doing so. Also, they are not that dumb.
2. A foolish Pennacchio supporter(s) wrote them. Perhaps someone who likes Chuck, but is ignorant of his all volunteer campaign wrote these craigslist posts. A person or two with good intentions could have written them, but was asked to remove the one offering payment, because it was bogus. This seems like a bit of a reach to me.
   
3. One of Pennacchio's opponents or a supporter thereof wrote them. Attacking your opponent's credibility--in this case Chuck's ethics--is a page right out of Karl Rove's playbook. Unfortunately, Rove's tactics are not limited to Republicans. In politics, tearing your opponent down is one of the best ways to make yourself look better. However, I remain confused about the authenticity of the volunteer phonebanking post.