Oppo Watch: Romney and Life
by Patrick Ruffini :: June 15th, 2007 2:32 pmI just received an email from prolifefederation@gmail.com with an article questioning Romney’s pro-life bona-fides post conversion.
Nor was this just any BCC job; they signed up for special email blast software, which means there’s lots of people on the list. Whatever this “Pro-Life Federation” is, there’s a good chance it was “founded” 15 minutes ago.
This fits the template of attacks on Romney seeming to pop up out of the blue. McCain supporters have motive and opportunity; the Arizonan isn’t exactly loved in the pro-life community, but if he can convince people Romney is worse without drawing too much attention to himself, he has a shot. Or this could be par-for-the-course skulduggery around the National Right to Life Convention in St. Louis, the tactical backdrop to the McCain-Romney war. Or this could be Brownback people, who have been ganging up with McCain on Romney, even sending out the “Mitt vs. Fact” YouTube clip in a press release.
My bet is that this was a McCain supporter, one or two steps removed from the campaign, going for “third party validation.” Brownback benefits from having his name on this. McCain doesn’t, necessarily.
Did anyone else get this? This would help ascertain if this went just to bloggers, or whether they “borrowed” from someone’s campaign email list.
UPDATE: More than one tipster points to Jerry Zandstra, a Brownback supporter in Michigan who ran for the Senate in 2006 and founded the Pro-Life Federation of Michigan. It’s worth noting, however, that Zandstra’s group has rated McCain highly on life issues and McCain operatives have run Zandstra’s campaigns.
Tagged: abortion 
mitt romney
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The Pro Life Federation is a Michigan group that was formed in 2006 by Jerry Zandstra. Their website is prolifefederation.org.
He supports Brownback and is also the organizer of the repealromneycare.org effort.
I’ve gottten the same “Pro Life Federation” spam e-mail no less than 5 times now.
They’ve obviously spent money harvesting deep into Republican email lists to get my personal address.
The sender never signs his/her name, and never responds to email. Very credible.
[…] Meanwhile Patrick Ruffini reports on the somewhat more underhanded side of the assault: I just received an email from prolifefederation@gmail.com with an article questioning Romney’s pro-life bona-fides post conversion.Nor was this just any BCC job; they signed up for special email blast software, which means there’s lots of people on the list. Whatever this “Pro-Life Federation” is, there’s a good chance it was “founded” 15 minutes ago. […]