Senator Scott Brown Endorses Dirty Campaign Tactics

Brown links to ‘CrazyKhazei’ Twitter feed

By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff


For nearly a month, Democratic Senate candidate Alan Khazei has been mocked by a “CrazyKhazei” Twitter account that pretends to represent his thinking and offers sometimes-nasty statements about the news of the day.

“Just got back from sunny California. Thanks to all the elitists there for donating to my campaign,” read one July 31 tweet.

“I promise not to join the National Guard. Unlike Scott Brown, I will spend all my time with real people in Washington,” read another.

A third said: “Just read Scott Brown’s book. He isn’t the only one who had it tough growing up. I once got a splinter.”

And a fourth tweet said: “I promise to devote all my time in office to making gay videos. Shame on Scott Brown for focusing on jobs!”

Now the author has been unmasked.

Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior campaign adviser to US Senator Scott Brown, the Republican who Khazei hopes to challenge in next year’s election, sent out a “CrazyKhazei”-type tweet last night from his personal Twitter account.

That can often happen when a person with multiple accounts chooses the wrong distribution channel on social media aggregation software such as HootSuite or TweetDeck.

“I’m excited to announce that Cindy Creem is the newest hire at my charity, Be the Change,” read the tweet posted by @EricFehrn at 8:05 p.m.

The post pivoted off a pair of Globe stories this week. One noted that Khazei, founder of “City Year” and “Be the Change,” had hired his brother Lance to work for the latter charity. Another yesterday reported that his campaign had been endorsed by state Senator Cynthia Creem of Newton.

The tweet was subsequently removed, but not before BlueMassGroup and Kevin Franck, spokesman for the Massachusetts Democratic Party, noted it on their own Twitter feeds and blog posts.

In an email late today, Fehrnstrom admitted he was the person behind the “CrazyKhazei” tweets - but pointedly did not apologize for them.

“It was my Twitter account,” the aide said in an email to the Globe. “Sometimes we take our politics too seriously and this was my way of lightening things up. As they say in politics, if you can’t stand the tweet, get out of the kitchen.”

Neither Brown’s campaign manager nor his US Senate communications director responded to a request for comment on Fehrnstrom’s actions.

The Khazei campaign called on Brown to denounce the tweets, demand that the Twitter account be closed, and apologize to the public.

“Instead of launching anonymous personal attacks against Alan Khazei, Senator Scott Brown and his team should focus their time and energy on growing our economy and putting Massachusetts citizens back to work,” Emily Cherniack, Khazei’s chief of staff, said in a statement.

“Voters are cynical about the political process because politicians in Washington have spent more time on name-calling and tearing each other down than they’ve spent working together to move the country forward,” she added.

Fehrnstrom’s involvement is somewhat ironic given his simultaneous work for Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney.

Fehrnstrom formerly served as the ex-Massachusetts governor’s communications director, and now he’s advising the campaign on strategy and helping devise its ads.

We’ve written previously about the perils of this dual service, and this episode highlights one: the Romney camp has been pushing back on suggestions the White House would attempt to paint Romney as “weird” in the unfolding campaign.

The suggestion was enough to prompt Obama adviser David Axelrod to declare he would fire any campaign employee doing so. And former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was forced to declare this past weekend that he had never labeled Romney as such.

In this case, it appears, a Romney aide promoted the idea that Khazei is not just weird, but “crazy.”

In addition to Fehrnstrom, Rob Willington, a former executive director for the Massachusetts Republican Party who’s also been working for Brown’s re-election campaign, also appears linked to “CrazyKhazei” shenanigans.

Domain-name records show that Willington registered the “CrazyKhazei.com” web address in January. It has not been activated yet, but the address could be utilized should Khazei win the nomination next year.

That’s one reason candidates - and businesses - often buy not just domain names they prefer but ones that could be used mock their legitimate interests.

We reached Willington this morning by phone and asked him to comment on his connection to the web address and the Twitter account.

“I just got off a plane in Washington. Can I call you right back?” he asked.

The phone did not ring in the ensuing six hours, and a follow-up call from the Globe to Willington’s cell phone bounced to voicemail after the first ring.