An intern with Republican Rand Paul’s Kentucky Senate Campaign identified himself as “Huey Long” in left-wing Daily Kos attacks on Paul’s Democratic opponent, Jack Conway. The intern’s track of emails underscores how online comments by anonymous bloggers offer new ground for political dirty tricks. In this case, the intern sought to get Conway removed from ActBlue’s online fundraising, and arguing that Conway was not sufficiently progressive to merit the group’s support. For the very illuminating trail of emails that should lead everyone to think twice about being influenced by anonymous commentators, see Jed Lewison’s article. UPDATE: After this article was first published, Politico followed up with claims from the Paul campaign that the intern was impersonated. What this means is you can still never trust these anonymous blog handles.
