The Star Tribune article from 4/21/1996 stated:
Aides and supporters of U.S. Senate candidate Bert McKasy accused opponents Rudy Boschwitz and Monti Moreno of dirty tricks Saturday, even as McKasy was handily winning straw polls of Republican activists at three congressional district conventions.
McKasy's aides charged that Moreno, a Stillwater hairdresser, was distributing sexually explicit material that falsely links McKasy to promotion of gayrights, and they accused former Sen. Boschwitz of secretly helping Moreno to make his case.
But the big issue is how Moreno, a neophyte presumably unschooled in the complexities of opposition research, got the information.
McKasy's press secretary, Pat Rosenstiel, said he believes Moreno somehow was fed the information on McKasy's votes by a Boschwitz researcher, Andy Gildea, who worked for McKasy in his 1994 campaign. The material Moreno distributed was photocopied from confidential Republican House caucus documents to which only a few people have access, and Gildea is one, Rosenstiel said.
Crazy huh? A guy works for the Republican Caucus, allegedly digs up dirt from the caucus and uses it to smear a former boss who is now an opponent?
Scary stuff. It makes me wonder though, where is Andy Gildea now?
Does he still work for the Republican Caucus?
According to the Minnesota House Staff Information Web site he still does, he's listed as a Research Consultant to the GOP Caucus. However, even more interesting is his ties to a current Gubernatorial candidate. That's right folks, as recently as October 9th, 2008, Andy Gildea was the Executive Assistant to none other than former Minority Leader Rep. Marty Seifert.
Marty Seifert who is now a candidate for governor is no stranger to accusations of inter-party smear campaigns. In fact, Change We Must Fight For (CWM) was the first to bring you the Laura Brod / Marty Seifert smear campaign story. To recap the story, numerous anonymous smears accusing Laura Brod of infidelity were popping up across conservative and liberal leaning blogs. After investigating the smears and publishing the findings, certain blogs began removing the offensive smears from their Web sites. Shortly thereafter, Andy Aplikowski a staunch conservative activist and blogger of Residual Forces leveled accusations against Marty Seifert and his staffers claiming they were responsible for the whisper smear campaign against Laura Brod.
Although Marty Seifert is on record denying all allegations of wrong-doing, Andy Aplikowski still stands by his original accusations. Could Andy Gildea be the "Republican Caucus staffer" that Andy Aplikowski was referring to in his original accusatory article before he deleted it from his Web site?
CWM is awaiting comment from Andy Aplikowski, and we will continue investigating this story and bring you updates as it unfolds.
Stay tuned, there's definitely more coming...
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