Graham Campaign Responds to Dear PoP Letter

“Dear PoP,

Yesterday you posted an anonymous letter from someone who observed campaign posters for Jim Graham being hung by employees of the MC Dean company. The letter writer didn’t have all the facts and as a result jumped to conclusions (or had a political agenda he failed to disclose).

First, the campaign contacted several possible vendors who could perform this service. Those vendors referred us to MC Dean. In the past, MC Dean has hung posters for candidates in DC and elsewhere. As a result, the Graham campaign hired MC Dean.

Second, MC Dean invoiced the Graham campaign for all the work performed.

Third, any suggestion that this work agreement is inappropriate is far-fetched. There are no regulations that prohibit a business that does work for the city to also perform work for a campaign. Thousands of businesses have contracts with the city. What if MC Dean was a printer that produced campaign fliers? Many DC campaigns have hired businesses that perform functions for the city. What’s the big deal? This is why we file campaign finance reports: transparency (as the photo posted to PoP demonstrates, MC Dean performed this work in broad daylight. Obviously, the campaign was transparent about the work).

Fourth, we know that individuals with a purely political agenda promoted this smear to several news outlets, and did so by combining misinformation with a selective use of facts. At least two news outlets reviewed the story (and the misinformation supplied to them), and decided not to report the story. The one outlet that did cover the story, the Washington Post, did so only on its blog and updated the story with facts that were not gathered before the story was originally posted.

Campaign season is often referred to as “silly season.” This comes as no surprise to any of us. While the Graham campaign is talking about issues of great concern to the community, this race is being tarnished by parties who have distorted the truth on more than one occasion and offered wild allegations without an iota of fact to support them.

My point: readers beware. If you read a campaign article that supplies but one side of the story you’re probably being spun.

Thank you for the opportunity to respond.

Chuck Thies
Re-Elect Jim Graham 2010″