Hi Haik,

I tried to get some information that might help you identify the source of that fraudulent blog.

I crossed referenced the IP addresses in Wiki that criticized Bernie and praised Tarrant. I found the following address: 216.204.87.210.

Interestingly, that address belongs to a block of addresses owned by the HayesGroup in Williston, Vermont. The HayesGroup is a public relations
firm. Other, similar, PR firms offer services to "ghost author" blog entries for their clients. Also, the owner of this firm, Matt Hayes, is a golfing buddy of Rich Tarrant as they belong to the same country club.

I suspect that Matt Hayes and his company, the HayesGroup is the source of the blog, PoliticsVermont.

Good luck with this information!

 

Thank you for your efforts, Deep Throat. Please forgive me, but I am not very technichally savvy. Can you explain what you meant by "I crossed referenced the IP addresses in Wiki that criticized Bernie and praised Tarrant." Does this somehow relate to Wikipedia?

 

I cannot tell you that I know for certain that the HayesGroup is involved with PoliticsVT Blog. I just know that someone from the HayesGroup, which is a PR firm, made many suspicious entries in the Wikipedia, and I know that PR firms often do "ghost" blogs and ghost blog entries for their clients. Here is more detail:

The PoliticsVt blog is hosted by Blogger. As a result, it is difficult to get information about IP addresses. I took a guess that whoever is working on that blog could also be working on other items on the Internet.

The Wikipedia is frequently the target of similar political efforts. I examined the IP addresses on Wikipedia, and I was particularly interested in the following address: 216.204.87.210. For that address a number of negative changes were made to Bernie's entry and positive changes were made to Tarrant's page. (Wikipedia lets you see the changes that are being made.) Somebody posting from that address also provided detailed fundraising information.

It took awhile to determine that the HayesGroup owns this IP Address, but I am certain of that information. While I do not have a direct link from the Wikipedia to the PoliticsVt blog, I think that the efforts of this PR frim are curious. To use a phrase coined by John Ashcroft, the HayesGroup is a "subject of interest", and Tarrant is doing a lot of interesting stuff on the Internet.

Also, the timing of the Wiki changes are very interesting. This effort from the HayesGroup started the next day after Tarrant's campaign gave Jeff Bartley a $5,000 loan. That could be a coincidence, but it could also be the source of the money for the HayesGroup to get started. Jeff Bartley was involved with vermontsenaterace.com.

With regards to Matt Hayes' relationship to Rich Tarrant, I found that information in a Burlington Country Club newsletter.

Also,you should know that it is possible to change ("spoof") your IP address. I suspect that the people at the HayesGroup forgot to spoof their address a few times, which is why it is turning up.

I hope that I am giving you useful information. I very much appreciate your efforts to expose
Tarrant's duplicity.

 

Anyone checking the timestamps on these comments will notice that I'm throwing them all up here in rapid succession. Who is deep throat? It's someone who emailed me. Is their name really deep throat? Maybe. I don't know. I don't really care. Anything that casts doubt on Tarrant's PolVT works for me. Back to the story...

 

I happened to come across an interesting article, written by Matt Hayes. Hayes says: "guerilla marketing has reached the Internet", and he discusses blogs. Here is the link:

http://www.vermontguides.com/2006/04-apr/marketing_demystified.html

Here are a couple of observations:

1. In this article, Matt Hayes says that people prefer to "dialog with folks of like mind." I think that philosophy might explain the diverse backgrounds of oliticsVT's fictional contributors.

2. In this article, Matt Hayes talks about the importance of an
"integrated strategy". As a result, I think that the presence of the Hayesgroup IP address on Wiki is not a coincidence.

I really think Politics Vermont blog is Tarrant's friend, Matt Hayes. I hope that these messages and this information is helpful to you, Haik.

 

A few of us for a while have noticed the Hayes Group Commention - but it's not specific to PolVT. Regular poster "Jason" (remember him) was definitely hitting from there... and possibly "Primo" too.

It;s good that you're keeping your eyes on them. It's seemed clear for some time that someone (or "ones") is using computers there to go around beating up on Bernie. There was never quite enough there for me to get into myself when I was investigating.... maybe you can have more luck.

 

Also, you should check to see what has been posted to the Wiki from the HayesGroup. For example, in December, they added the following message to the end of Tarrant's entry:

"... increase chatter is giving more credibility to a Tarrant victory in 2006."

On Bernie's Wiki entry, in December, they removed almost all positive statements and they wrote the following:

"Bernie Sanders political career started in the early seventies when he ran for office as a member of the anti-Vietnam War candidate. He lost five times for state wide offices in Vermont.....

Political chatter gives credit to the 2006 US Senate race as being a very close one."

Basically, they radically changed the information in Bernie's Wiki entry, and they tried to make the race look close at a time when the polls showed Bernie ahead by 40 points. These entries were subsequently fixed by other people. I think that this history is interesting, however.

As you probably know, anybody can post anything to the Wikipedia.

Thanks again for everything that you are doing, Haik.

-Deep Throat

 

OOOOH! This is getting EXCITING! Will PolVT be breaking some big negative Bernie story in the home stretch that will allow his opponent to erase a 30 point deficit? It would have to be one of those famous Huey Long get-caught-in-bed-with-a-dead-girl-or-a-dead-boy things, and in VT that might not even be enough. B/C, at the end of the day, the sad truth of the blogoshere is still driven by MSM, and not the other way around (sorry, GMD).

Either way, fact or fiction, this story is getting DELICIOUS! Who's going to play Deep Throat? Kirk Douglas in an amazing comeback role? George Clooney as Haik? Some George Lucas digital creation for the GMD crowd?

Needs a chick, Haik. Maybe Angelina Jolie. Then, you (George) and the chick (Angelina), tipped off by Deep Throat (Kirk), can unravel the great blogosphere mystery, battle the GMDs, then come face to face with . . . in an amazing cameo . . . Marlon Brando (stock footage) as the evil "Dead Governor".

Oh yeah, and Eminem as Snarky Boy for a little halftime musical entertainment!

 

Close this comment box and scroll down to read the email exchange I had with Matt Hayes on Monday. It's underneath the "Exposing the Ded Govs" poll. BTW- As it stands now, a plurality think Freyne will out them first (37 votes), Resmer is next with 24 votes, Shay Totten rounds out third place with 20 votes. Who will out PolVT first (besides me?) I don't really care, as long as somebody does.