After a few weeks of observing the Baker Bots tweet, I received an anonymous tip as to the identity of one of the anonymous accounts. I was told that @TomSnod was really none other than Jay Altschuler, Northeastern University College Republicans member and Baker campaign volunteer. From what I understand, Mr. Altschuler played the role of IT Administrator for the Baker Committee at one point, but I am unsure of his role at this point in time. Regardless, take a look at his Twitter stream – attacks against the Governor and the Treasurer, re-tweets of Charlie Baker’s messages, and more attacks against the Governor and Treasurer – during business hours, of course! You might notice that @TomSnod is no longer posting to Twitter. That most likely has something to do with an anti-Baker Bot account broadcasting his identity to the world on Twitter. Now @TomSnod is a peach, but he’s nothing compared to @DarinJulian. Darin originally had a Twitter user picture that consisted of a diverse family – a husband and wife of different ethnicities with their child. All it took was a quick search on TinEye.com to find out that the picture is a stock photo that is named “Diverse Family”. I called him on it, and the picture changed almost immediately to the Massachusetts Flag flowing in the wind. Fair enough, but Darin’s two pictures had one thing in common: they both came from a website called IStockPhoto.com. iStockPhoto provides a subscription-based service that allows users to take images and use them royalty-free. Oddly enough, Charlie Baker’s campaign purchased a subscription to that website on May 12th on the campaign credit card. The nail in the coffin that confirmed @DarinJulien’s identity came when I did a quick Google search and was directed to a Twitter account belonging to a Darin Gibbons. His last tweet was on May 26th (since deleted) appears below –
That’s weird – so @DarinJulian is really Darin Gibbons, and what @DarinJulian is tweeting about is FOR WORK? That’s bizarre – I wonder who he works for? So he spends all day making fun of Deval Patrick and Tim Cahill for WORK? Weird job. Darin Gibbons is a registered user of Charlie Baker’s Online Action Center, too. At least he wasn’t using a fake name – Julian is just his middle name! Upon giving Darin a heads up that I knew who he was, he changed his original twitter account name to @MAGibbs10 and protected his tweets.
Next! Here we have @LeGrandRouge– he calls himself “Devin Gallagher” on Twitter where he posts lots of messages to the #MAGov Twitter feed. Lots and lots of Cahill attacks, lots of attacks against Governor Patrick and the Massachusetts Democratic Party. Devin is on the Baker Online Action Center, but I found it odd that one of the first comment s on his page was “Hey Dev…I got a new nickname for you- Scott.” Who could “Scott” be? Oh, I wonder if it’s Scott “L”, who lists himself as “Baker-Tisei Staff” and has the same interests listed as @LeGrandRouge. Odd. He also has comments on his page pertaining to skiing and ski jumps – very likely a reference to @LeGrandRouge’s Twitter picture of a skier taking a pretty big jump. Scott’s linkedin has him working at The Exeter Group – coincidentally they happen to be Charlie Baker’s IT Consultants…
Next up, @Barry_Fields – my facts aren’t too good for this one, but based on the anonymity of the account, the tweet times, and the subject matter, I started guessing that he was Baker Bot. In taking a look at certain tweets from the account, I’m pretty sure he’s working for the campaign. I’m not going to go so far as to identify the individual I believe created this account, but will say that he works for the Tisei campaign and formerly worked in Sen. Tisei’s senate office.
Some other accounts worth checking out are @TimmyIsSteamin – an account created after @DarinJulian began tweeting about Tim Cahill’s use of “TimsTeam” asking who “Tim Steam” was. @TimmyIsSteamin is devoted to Mocking Tim Cahill and pestering Cahill’s daughters. During business hours, of course. Same with @Wheres_Pauly – an account created in a similar fashion to @TimmyIsSteamin and devoted to mocking Paul Losocco.
Charlie’s interns also fail to identify themselves as Baker interns working from campaign headquarters in their Twitter profiles, but I don’t really have a problem with that. I would like to point out, however, that Governor Patrick’s interns and employees all seem to embrace transparency and identify themselves quite clearly on their Twitter profiles. A majority of Baker’s employees do, too.
So, even if the evidence isn’t 100% for all of these users, I hope you understand my concern and frustration about the actions of Charlie Bakers’ employees and/or volunteers. I’m hoping that Charlie Baker’s campaign will stop resorting to the use of anonymous Twitter accounts to get their message across. If the campaign and/or the account owners are not willing to express their opinions openly due to the possibility of damaging the campaign’s image, then maybe they shouldn’t be posting the items to start with. Negativity doesn’t win campaigns – neither does Astroturf.
After reading this, if you’re looking for a laugh, check out this hypocritical tweet from a member of Baker’s staff today:
It’s twitter. It’s not actually real life.
like cockroaches when they see light : )
My obsession with knowing everything about everything electronic peaked when I became an expert in DOS and Microsoft came along and destroyed DOS and made me obsolete.
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p>I just can’t make myself care about this stupid fad, please don’t expect me to care.
Get off my lawn, dag nab it.
And this is all way over my head. Nice sluething though.
Bottom line: The Baker campaign has been sockpuppeting Twitter eight ways from Sunday.
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p>I think the reason why this is news to many here is that Twitter seems to be much more heavily used by conservatives. I don’t know why, though I could hazard a few guesses.
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p>The idea that you have to pay a bunch of collegiate-age rising political hacks to hock 140-character loogies on the #magov feed is … well … pathetic. You’d think they could get better quality work on their message, but I guess they’ve gone for quantity instead.
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p>In any event, the Baker campaign seems to be corking its bat. Sad.
As a former “collegiate-age political hack”, its more about getting a job in the shitty ass economy. Work on campaigns, better chance at getting a job.
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p>People have done worse in the hopes of putting a roof over their own heads some day.
Unemployment rate by education according to the BLS. Note that for those with a college degree, it’s currently 4.4%, substantially better than the 5.0% of February.
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p>These kids aren’t working for Baker because they’re maximizing their employ-ability due to the economy… or, if they are, they’re dopes. None of these kids will have a hard time finding a job when they’re out of college in a year or two or three, with or without Charlie Baker. They’ll have degrees from solid (or great) MA colleges during an economic recovery when unemployment for those with college degrees is relatively low and a chunk of that is people 55-65 who are having trouble being rehired because they’re being passed over for the far cheaper recent college grads.
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p>You’ll not I not even once mentioned that they’re all spoiled rich brats who’ll only wonder when they’ll be able to put a roof over their summer home some day. đŸ˜›
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p>I changed majors super late, so I had to take an extra year, so most of my friends graduated in ’09, and they’re only starting to get jobs now. That means it took them a year to find jobs. Even people I’ve met through CR’s at $$$ schools aren’t walking out the door of their school and into a full-time job.
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p>I don’t know what it’s like getting a degree from a prestigious and expensive college, but when you graduate with a degree from a state university, you need everything you possibly can to make your resume look better and increase the chances you’ll have met someone who can get your foot in the door somewhere.
if one has not had a job for X number of months, they drop out of being considered “unemployed”, so if a college student who did hold employment while earning his or her degree graduates and can’t find a job, they wouldn’t impact the unemployment numbers.
You are unemployed as long as you are actively looking for a job. It’s when you give up looking and go do something else (go back to school, hitchhike Europe for the summer, take up living in a van down by the river, or hone your Donkey Kong skills fulltime to become world champ) that you are no longer considered “unemployed”.
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p>At least, that’s how the government counts unemployed people. Of course, they don’t have a monopoly, but they are the source that most people quote.
…because 4.0-5.0% unemployment doesn’t jive with my anecdotal experience as a recent grad with lots of friends who graduated in the past two years.
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p>I know that a job is a job, so people who are employed don’t get a pity party, but I’m wondering how many people in that 95-96% employed range are working in something piddling completely unrelated to their major.
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p>I know that I did all manner of weird and menial political work because it increased my chances of doing something I want to do – work in politics. Although I can’t say I ever anonymously heckled people on twitter.
Column from John Derbyshire. It makes some interesting observations.
http://article.nationalreview….
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p>I forget where I read something similar, but elsewhere the point was made about how odd it is that at the same time we look down on anyone having to do these menial jobs, on the tv there are these much watched reality tv shows that are about just that: Dirty Jobs, Ice Road Truckers, etc.
funny you mention that, I get the same funny looks when I say I was a garbage collector in between my sophomore and junior year [I’m 22].
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p>That said, I’m not exactly lining up for physical labor right now, even as I go through the tedious and challenging job application process.
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p>Have you heard of http://www.takeourjobs.org/ ?
Think John McCain could find that $50 an hour lettuce picking gig at that site?
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p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
I have zero sympathy for recent college graduates who align themselves with the GOP and simultaneously whine about how tough the economy is.
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p>The MA and national economy collapsed because decades of right-wing mis-management — beginning with Ronald Reagan — destroyed the thriving economy built by the WWII generation.
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p>The GOP slashed and burned virtually everything — public education, infrastructure, transit, social services — while dismantling and/or incapacitating virtually ALL effective regulatory enforcement.
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p>The common thread across the entire spectrum of GOP economic policy has been to throw everybody else under the bus while giving the handful of rich white men (and yes, that IS the demographic) who control the corporate sphere anything and everything they wanted.
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p>Today’s economy sucks because the economy collapsed in 2008. The economy collapsed in 2008 because the “advances” made during the Bush years were, in fact, built on nothing but sand. It was, in far too many ways, a repeat of the S&L collapse of the late 80s — same failed philosophy, same corrupt leaders and proponents, but larger in scale. The same failed premises, the same self-serving lies, the same denial of facts apparent to anyone willing to look.
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p>When the abuses that created the collapse of 2008 were happening, it was the GOP who was defending them every step of the way (just as in the buildup to the S&L collapse twenty years earlier). The GOP controlled the government, and Democrats who tried even to slow down the “privatization” and “deregulation” freight train were steamrolled by the right wing. As bad as the 2008 collapse has been, just imagine what had happened if the Bush and GOP had had its way with privatizing social security.
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p>If today’s recent graduates want to work in the political sphere while striving to build a healthier economy in the future, the GOP is the very last place to begin.
Were a bipartisan fiasco. Trying to attach them to one party or the other is disingenuous.
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p>Both parties have plenty of blame to go around when it comes to the collapse, especially when looking at the two mortgage giants.
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p>The fact that they were left out of financial reform irks me to no end as those two seem to lead charmed lives. Each time someone steps forward to enhance regulation over them it/they is/are beaten back. Our own Rep. Frank did his part in the 2004 – 2007 period to protect these two from increased oversight.
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p>My point is, we need to acknowledge that both parties played a role in the mortgage meltdown both from a regulatory or lack of regulatory perspective as well as from what I refer to as control of politicians perspective. Taking that approach, I watch both parties carefully as I trust neither to necessarily work in my best interest when it comes to those in positions of power on Wall Street and K Street.
I don’t agree that Fannie and Freddie played the causative role in the collapse that you seem to ascribe to them. The GOP has relentlessly advocated privatization, deregulation, and unrestricted corporate greed for decades. The collapse of 2008 was the obvious result.
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p>I don’t see how anyone who is paying attention to politics can claim that the causes for the collapse of 2008 are “bipartisan”. The GOP held all three branches of government, the GOP put its economic theory into practice, and in a few short years, those policies destroyed the economy.
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p>No matter how one bobs and weaves, that’s what happened. Now, the GOP relentless opposes and attempts to sabotage each and every step President Obama makes towards solving the problem — the GOP would much rather see the pain and suffering continue than see President Obama and the Democrats receive the credit they are due for solving the problems created by the GOP. You can’t really blame, this behavior is simple self-preservation. The GOP royally screwed up the economy, and when President Obama fixes it, the very fact that those fixes work makes the screw-up by the GOP even more apparent.
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p>If the recovery is happening more slowly than the public would like to see, it is because the GOP is blocking each and every effort at each and every step of the way. We saw this with health care reform, we saw it with banking and finance reform, and we’re seeing it with the extension of unemployment benefits.
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p>The Democrats put forward needed solutions, and the GOP resists them — and then blames the slow(er) recovery on President Obama. Want to talk about “disingenuous”? THAT is disingenuous.
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p>There is nothing “disingenuous” about observing that the GOP has carried water for corporate interests for decades — that is who the GOP is and always has been. If there is anything disingenuous, it is the sudden accusations of “partisanship” when the GOP-driven corporate giveaways are revealed for being the disaster that they were.
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p>When the GOP starts advocating for, rather than resisting, regulations to protecting working-class citizens from rapacious banks and creditors, then we’ll talk. When the GOP starts advocating for, rather than resisting, truth-in-lending requirements, then we’ll talk. Same for usury caps on interest rates. Same for caps on service charges. Same for tax treatments of compensation paid investment managers (capital gain versus W2). Remember when the bankruptcy laws were rewritten to screw folks on the bottom? Who led the charge? Oh yeah, the GOP.
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p>I invite you to offer one or two examples where the GOP led the way towards restricting corporate interests and/or protecting working-class men and women from corporations who exploit them.
Visiting the sins of one generation upon the youth of the next. Very Old Testament of you.
And I well remember the lean post-collegiate years, so I can’t begrudge anyone for doing the work.
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p>I guess I’m just saying the Baker campaign is probably not getting its money’s worth, and probably not using the talent and ingenuity these fine young conservatives have to offer.
That’s easy – anything with more than 140 characters has way too much nuance for them!
I do wonder if quantity does have an effect– I seem to recall Brown’s camp overwhelming the Coakley Twitter feed on election day. Jeff Perry recently sent out an email on how to sign up to tweet and what to tweet, to all of his volunteers. I assume this is because the Perry folk do not have a lot of faith in their volunteers on what to tweet. The right is using the social media avenue very well, and I cant say I blame them. As a candidate you should use whatever is at your disposal, and that includes social media and blog sites.
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p>That being said– Great job with the detective work, made for a very interesting read!
Watch out for how the comment sections of online news stories at the Boston Globe or Herald will drastically change and suddenly be flooded with a 90-10 split in favor of Baker. All of us probably remember during the January’s Senate election, the comment sections were filled with 800+ comments with 95% supporting Brown with clear written talking points …. reason being is that there are out of state Political arms that will create fake accounts and flood comment boards to attack the opponent and widely support their guy. I know from someone in the know that there were a few of these groups from out of state did that in the special election on a volunteer basis. They always use account names as the local sports team (i.e. redsox10, tombradyfan1212) to seem authentic.
The Baker campaign was also accused of making fake accounts on RMG a few months back to trash Mihos and then Cahill too. It was so bad that I remember the editors there wanted to restrict and/or delete these accounts.
It was before the GOP convention so it was Christy vs Baker stuff. Three different usernames would post almost the same thing about Christy’s financial problems one after another. If you happened to post immediately prior to something like that then your post would quickly move down the queue and off the page. Real annoying.