April 27, 2000,

A sorry excuse for an apology after 37th flap

By Jeff Hawkes Political operative Don Raymond could learn something from my first-grader. When you're caught being bad, he'd tell Raymond, you have to at least sound like you're sorry. Raymond doesn't sound very sorry to me. Raymond of Phoenixville was a consultant in Kevin Harley's well-funded but unsuccessful bid to win election to the state House. With the campaign in trouble, Raymond played a dirty trick that backfired. Only days before the April 4 GOP primary, he hired another consultant, Christopher Nicholas of Harrisburg, to order a last-minute round of negative phone calls. The targets were candidates Tom Creighton and Marc Lemon. Nicholas said Raymond gave him a script that besmirched Creighton's reputation as a township supervisor. The script then, devilishly, asked voters to support Lemon, suggesting that Lemon was behind the smear campaign. It might have worked except a Creighton campaign worker got one of the 2,800 calls, leading Creighton and Lemon to discover that Conquest Communications of Richmond, Va., placed the calls at Nicholas' bidding. Lemon threatened to sue Nicholas, prompting him to reveal he was just following Raymond's orders. Harley's denial Maybe Raymond was following orders, too, but he's not saying. He doesn't return phone calls. Harley and his campaign manager, Bill Hall, denounced the smear calls and said they didn't order them. Harley has depicted Raymond as a loose cannon. "He took it upon himself to do it," Harley has said. "I wasn't aware." If Harley and Hall are telling the truth and Raymond alone authorized the calls, it makes you wonder what Raymond was smoking. Does he think he'll work again as a political consultant? What candidate is going to hire a consultant that can't be trusted to consult with the candidate? Before Raymond's role surfaced, Lemon demanded that Nicholas issue an apology and reveal who hired him to rev up the phone bank. Nicholas instead named Raymond, and Raymond issued an apology that has appeased Lemon but shouldn't satisfy voters. It's particularly galling that Raymond didn't sign the "apology." It's on his lawyer's letterhead and is signed by Raymond's lawyer.

Then the first sentence of the two-sentence "apology" states the obvious: "On behalf of my client, Don Raymond, this letter will confirm the fact that neither you nor your campaigns nor anyone associated with your campaigns, ever had any advance knowledge of, or participation in, telephone calls made by Conquest Communications in connection with the primary election." Well, no kidding. Absence of remorse The letter concludes that Raymond "regrets any misperception that you authorized the calls or that the calls may have created." That's an apology? Nowhere does the lawyer's letter acknowledge there's anything wrong with disseminating deliberately untruthful and misleading campaign messages. And nowhere does the lawyer state his client accepts responsibility for the calls. Raymond's only stated regret is that what was done might have caused a "misperception." It's as if he's blaming the voters for being gullible enough to believe the phone calls. If the calls had helped Harley defeat Creighton, the public outcry would have endangered Harley's chances of winning the general election. In the end Harley lost, but that doesn't mean no harm was done. The kind of dirty, cutthroat politics that Raymond engaged in deters good people from running for office and turns voters off. Harley should do more than try to distance himself from Raymond. He should insist that Raymond provide voters a full and candid explanation of the decision to smear Creighton and Lemon. Harley should also insist that Raymond apologize -- and mean it.