Clark meetups sabotaged -- redirected to Dean organization.

[RandomUser]

First of all, I want to say that I've made it a policy to avoid threads bashing other candidates, and have resisted the urge despite provocations of Clark bashers. I studiously try to stay out of those threads because I don't feel I need to bash other candidates to promote Clark.

But I just read something on the Clark blog that is extreme -- extremely -- troubling. Dirty tricks even lower then the anonymous push-polls against Clark in NH.


SORRY FOR POSTING THIS AGAIN, BUT:
***BEWARE OF MEETUP***
***DEAN SABOTAGED OURS***
ok, so this really ticked me off, I'm sorry, but:

We had our first meetup in Cincinnati here last month and one of our members got us space at an office building. Perfect right?

This month's meetup, someone nominates some place called Knowlton Center. And somehow, more people voted to go to Knowlton Center than our other predetermined venue. Luckily, we had everyone's e-mail addresses, so we just let everyone know to ignore Meetup and meet where we said. So we do, and we had a very productive meeting...

Halfway through, we decide to call the Knowlton Center to find out if there's anyone over there who wants to meet with our established group.

I called and a man answers "Hello?"
Me: Is this the Knowlton Center?
Dude: Um, who are you looking for?
Me: I'm looking for a group of people there.
Dude: This is Dean for President, Cincinnati, who are you looking for?
Me: Wes Clark for President Meetup, what's going on here?
Dude: I, uh, saw that on Meetup.com and tried to tell e-mail them about it. Someone put my cell phone number up there. I guess they're playing a joke.
Me: Bye.

THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS.
Someone at Headquarters should tear Meetup.com a new one. We need to figure out ways to double check that we're not being duped. Did anyone else have this problem or anything similar?

MAKE SURE you establish a network in your local groups. we still had over 30 people come, but what if new members went to the bunk location? What are they thinking now? Dirty Politics as usual. I'm making up 250 buttons for General Clark tonight in honor of these cheaters. They will not stop us.
GO WES CLARK.
DEAN CAN'T WIN SO HE CHEATS!

Can someone offer some solutions?
t~
Posted by tim in ky at November 3, 2003 09:36 PM


First, I want to say that the poster is obviously, and understandably, upset and angry over what happened.

1) This may have been done by Dean supporters.
2) This may have been done by supporters of other candidates.
3) This may have been done by Rove.

But the fact is that someone has violated the integrity of meetups, where supporters and curious undecideds get together, redirecting them to a rival candidate's organization. And the victim believed it to be Dean.

[WilliamPitt]

1. Whether or not a Deanie did this

The Dean campaign should probably say something.

[AWD]

4. What are YOU doing here???

The Patriots just took the lead, and you're HERE????

[WilliamPitt]

5. I'm here and there

and everywhere. :)

[Patriot_Spear]

52. error

wrong place

[Flaming Meaux]

50. Bring it to their attention.

This is on the Clark blog, not the New York Times. The Dean campaign probably doesn't know anything about it.

Running a decentralized campaign like Dean is, you're bound to have some folks who will do dirty tricks like this. It's like a couple of months ago when somebody fired up a spam machine to send Dean stuff. Neither Dr. Dean nor his campaign staff had a thing to do about it, but they apologized for it anyway, telling their throng of Deaniacs to knock it off.

[AWD]

2. edited....

I misread the story

[Renew Deal]

3. edited

He misread the story :)

[WilliamPitt]

6. edddittteedd

I misread his misread...

[AWD]

7. Yeah....

...I thought they were misdirected to a Dean Meetup. They were just sent to a place that houses Dean For America.

[RandomUser]

9. And evidently

The dean organizer's cell phone number was also used, whether with his knowledge or not is up for debate.

[TLM]

54. That sounds more like a dirty trick against Dean...

Why would Dean folks want to redirect Clark folks to the Dean for President, Cincinnati office?

Seems if someone was going to screw with the Clark meetup, they'd redirect it to a gay bar or something like that.


To me this looks more like a way to flood the Dean offices with angry calls or angry Clark supporters.

[Patriot_Spear]

58. You're clearly smarter than those blaming Dean...

Why is it so hard for them to see that these kind of divisions are being created by those against the democratic Party?

[TLM]

65. Well Clark supporters can't see that they are supporting...

an admitted war criminal and DC lobbyist who was heaping praise on Reagan and Bush's great leadership before he decided he wanted to run as a democrat.

So they're not exactly clear critical thinkers when it comes to Clark.

[Demobrat]

8. Are you sure he said Dean for President, Cincinnati?

Not Dean for America?

[RandomUser]

11. Go on the blog and ask

This is a straight copy and paste of what was written on the blog.

[Demobrat]

48. In that case

the blogger had absolutely no clue about Dean or his campaign. We never say Dean for President. It's Dean for America.

[Julien Sorel]

51. How utterly invalidating.

Is that something like a verbal secret handshake?

[madfloridian]

14. The Dean site is Dean for America, not president.

I don't see that the blogger had enough to go on to even imply.

This is all getting very silly.

[RandomUser]

19. First of all

The blogger might have mistaken "Dean for America" with "Dean for President". Second, there is the fact that there was a cellphone number of a Dean organizer, and the venue's building was a Dean organization location. If you wish to follow up and verify, you can go on the blog, or contact anyone in that meetup group and ask for the cellphone number and address and check up on it yourself.

Is it proof that Dean is behind this? But clearly the poster believed it to be Dean supporters. And there is a cell number and address link to the Dean organization. Whether it was planted there by a third party or by the Dean supporters themselves is up for debate, and I doubt we'll know unless we invent a truth serum.

[TLM]

55. Yeah, I'm starting to wonder if Clark Corps didn't do this...

just to try and screw with the Dean campaign offices.

[1songbird]

10. 1songbird

Oh my goodness are you kidding! I am a member of the Clark Meetup here in Cincy as well. I received notice about the meeting being held at the Dharma Center on Knowlton Avenue but I also received a special email stating that the meeting would be at the Northwestern Mutual Financial office building. I was out of town and did not get back here in time for the meeting. Where was the meeting actually held?

[madfloridian]

13. And who did you receive the notice from?

The Meet-up site.

Dean has no control over Meet-up, it is run by another guy.

[Julien Sorel]

15. If enough Deanites got together, signed up

for the Clark meetups, and voted for the site, then it would 'win' and their venue would be the one chosen. It's one of the flaws to the meetup system.

The Meetup people are ultimately responsible for catching whoever did it and kicking them out, for whatever good it will do.

[Pastiche423]

17. I'm confused

How would winning the clark venue help the Dean supporters?

[RandomUser]

18. Let's see

First of all, I've stated three possible culprits. One of which is Dean, the other two not. The latter two obviously have an interest in stirring up Clark/Dean resentment and infighting. As for the former and your question:

1) Disrupting a meetup sets back their planning and organization, wasting their time.

2) People new to the meetup and only tentative Clark supporters may happen upon the Dean location, realize it's not a Clark meetup and conclude that this whole meetup thing is a hassle and a mess. Then say the hell with it, and forget about attending a future one.

3) First time meetup people who are undecided, curious about the presidential candidates, don't really know much about them, have particular preferences, and only want to fool around with political activism may be wooed to the Dean camp.

4) First timer meetup undecided who are leaning Clark may conclude that this mess up means Clark people are incompetent and decide to ditch Clark.

Do I know that Deanies were absolutely behind this? No. But that is the belief of those who fell victim. Is there incentive for Dean supporters to do this? If they're unscruplous, yes, just as the other two potential culprits have the incentive.

Obviously, someone sees Clark as a threat and acted to sabotage this meetup.

[Pastiche423]

22. Have you gone to a meet up page?

They are set up 1st by zip code. You type in your zip code, then that takes you to a page of different meet ups. In my area there are about 24 different meet ups.

You then click on which meet up you want to attend. From there you are given seperate venues of the meet up of your choice to vote on. Five people must vote on the same venue, or the venue is canceled.

I don't see how voting on one venue can screw up a different meet up. If 25 people voted for a particular clark venue, how could Dean supporters screw that up?

Like I said before, you got a beef? Take it up w/the meet up people. They are the ones that are in control. The Dean supporters have NO control overthe meet ups.

[TLM]

60. They'd have us believe that a whole group of Dean plants...

joined the clark meetup, nominated the Dean campaign offices for the venue while posting the Dean campaign guy's cell number, and had enough people to out vote the clark folks.

Yet the Clark folks all got e-mail telling them the real venue and suddenly this rant shows up on the blog.


I think the Clark folks were just trying to F with the Dean campaign offices... I mean if it was Dean folks do you seriously think they'd post the campaign guy's cell number?

[Hep]

63. see

Paying meetup members don't get to nominate as many venues as they want. Why waste a nomination for a Lark meetup when we should be focusing our efforts on expanding the Dean ones? That's why this all smells fishy to me.

[Hep]

62. Well

Like I said before, you got a beef? Take it up w/the meet up people. They are the ones that are in control. The Dean supporters have NO control overthe meet ups.

That's not entirely true. Dean supporters have COMPLETE control over the meetups. We nominate venues, we vote for the venues, and we host the meetups.

[TLM]

59. So now there is a whole mass of Dean supporters...

joining the Clark metups to redirect the Clark group to Dean's campaign offices and posting the Dean guy's cell number?

Please?

Yet the Clark folks all got e-mails telling them this wasn't the venue to go to? Clarly this was CLark Corps trying to F with the Dean campaign offices.

If it had been anybody but the Clark folks... how would they know to send out an e-mail for the real venue.

[RetroLounge]

64. Ooooh, The VDC in action. EVIL DEAN! EVIL DEAN!

The Vast Deanite Conspiracy!

Sheesh...

Has this been confirmed by ANYONE? Or are we to take the blogger's word for it? Anyone else have the same thing happen to them?

Waiting...

[1songbird]

16. Obviously

[madfloridian]

27. Then obviously you need to contact Meet-up.

Thanks.

[TLM]

57. Don't you have to be signed up with a given group on meetup

to nominate a venue for that group?


This stinks of Clark Corps... they nominate the Dean offices and put the Dean guy's number up there, yet send out a private e-mail to everyone to go somewhere else?

Where did the votes for the venue come from?

How did they know to go to another venue?

Why didn't they just vote for the other venue?


This is crap.

[Pastiche423]

12. I believe your beef

should be w/meetup.com

They or someone that can control their websites have been screwing up our meet ups for over eight months. We finally said f'em and chose our own spot.

Which also means, we are not counted in the official number of Dean meet ups.

[RandomUser]

20. You're right

Meetup.com screwed up. But they were the enabler, not the initiator of the sabotage. Someone had to log on and submit the Dean location, and the Dean organizer's number. And then lots of someones had to go on the site and vote for the Dean location.

It might be Dean supporters, other candidate supporters, or Rove.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[madfloridian]

28. I alerted on this.

Namecalling and unproved accusations.

[RetroLounge]

66. What? he called him Columbo?

Oooohhh, name calling at its worst....

You all need to lighten up...

[TLM]

61. Why would Dean supporters post their own guy's cell number?

This was an attempt, I think to have a bunch of angery Clark supporters show up at Dean offices, or at least fire off angry calls to the Dean guy's cell number.

Do you seriously think they got a ton of Dean supporters to log in and vote for their own campaign offices as the venue for the CLark meetup??

Yet the Clark folks all got e-mails telling them the right venue?

This stinks of dirty tricks by the Clark crew...

[jburton]

23. This sucks

But I doubt it was a Dean action. They have better things to do.

The interesting thing would be to see how that phone number is answered in a few days. Betcha it's a "throwaway" cell.

This is kind of an old dirty trick, made easier by the nature of Meetup.

[Lady President]

24. Kerry's meetups have problems too

Kerry meetups in Cincinnati and Cleveland have been sabotaged too, so maybe it's a group of trouble-makers in Ohio. For the record, I have no idea which candidates supporters are causing problems and I don't see anyway to conclusively find out.

I can't remember exactly what happened in Cincinnati and the person who told me the story is volunteering in Iowa right now. Basically, someone with a Meetup+ account suggested a venue which didn't exist.

The first month in Cleveland a coffee house that had closed was voted as the venue. I'm sure things like that happen. The problem was the next month someone suggested that same closed place and it was voted as the venue again. The Cleveland host contact Meetup to have the venue removed, emailed all the supports she knew from waiting around by the closed place the month before, and posted on the Meetup message board not to vote for it again. On the last day of voting a bunch of new Kerry "supporters" signed up and all voted for the closed coffee house. Any new supporter or someone who just waits for the email telling them where to go ended up missing out on the Meetup.

As long as you have different email accounts you can sign up for Meetup as many times as you want, so it wouldn't take too many people to skew the numbers. It's a real shame. :(

[Julien Sorel]

25. Gee, Kerry and Clark seem to be the targets.

Thinking caps on, rangers. :eyes:

[Pastiche423]

26. No, it's been happening

w/the Dean meet ups for months, too.

As I said above, in my area we finally gave up and organized our own place to meet.

[RetroLounge]

67. That's just those clever Dean People

doing it to themselves to throw the Clarkies off the path.

Smart guys, those Dean Supporters...

[Castilleja]

29. Meetups in our city had two diff. venues also

Dean meetup was supposed to have been held in one certain little coffee house, but then when I received an email about it, it was changed to a different little coffee house. :shrug:

[dsc]

49. IT happened to Dean meetups in Cleveland too

we have yet to have the one favored by the campaign chosen. And we were also directed to a closed Arabica (somewhere on the east side). We found out it was closed over a week ahead of time so I didn't get directions so I don't know the exact location.

[FrenchieCat]

30. Whoever is responsible, it's a cheap trick

and shows desperation and stupidity.

However, Clark supporters will not be discouraged...what with the press having Clark on ignore (hoping for the fade) and Dean lionized by New York Post and WSJ for his brave appeal to White Wing Conferate Flag waving Bigots......

What will tommorrow bring?

MAYBE A NEW PRESIDENT?

[Pastiche423]

31. Maybe I am dense

but could you explain to me like I was a six year old, how a Dean supporter could have sabotaged a clark meet up when they have no control over Meet Ups, which is a soley different organization?

I do not believe it can be done.

[FrenchieCat]

32. I said whoever.....didn't say who.....

My other comment was about how Clark supporters will weather those kinda things, in case there was an attempt to discourage... which reminded me how our candidate being put on ignore in order to put out the flames that he ignites has not discouraged us. While at it I decided to also take a stab at the Dean phenomenon of Right Wing pundits having found their SoulDemMate in Dean. Since I just read the New York post and the WSJ articles a few moments ago, They were gushing about how his comments were "OK".

I like my comments varied....kinda multifacet...you know...like my men.

THIS CANDIDATE HAS "IT"

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[FrenchieCat]

36. I am what I am, but thanks for your suggestions....

"you have no idea how Meet Ups work"
You have no idea as to what I said, obviously.

"but just wanted to jab at Dean supporters"
Took an admitted jab at Dean (you stand corrected)

"out of your own ignorance."
Don't be a hater.....

THIS CANDIDATE HAS "IT"

[Pastiche423]

38. You responded to my question

"... how a Dean supporter could have sabotaged a clark meet up when they have no control over Meet Ups?", w/a non answer. Thus, of course I have no idea as to what you said, obviously. lol Why did you respond when you din't know?

And no, I do not stand corrected.

Pointing out you ignorance has nothing to do w/hate. You did not have an answer, thus you are ignorant as to how Meet Ups work, right? There is nothing hateful about that.

[FrenchieCat]

37. can't help it if

the Right Wing is having a LOVEFest with your Candidate.....

They obviously thinks he has "IT"......
That's good for you,isn't it?

[Lady President]

35. Sabotage on Meetup is easy

It would be fairly easy to sabotage any smaller Meetup, especially if one person is a Meetup+ member.

1. People with Meetup+ status can suggest a new venue or request an existing venue be one of the choices. (Normally, this is a good thing because it allows for Meetups in new areas of large cities.) This member could suggest a closed venue and because of their Meetup+ status it has to be one of the choices. If none of the saboteurs have Meetup+, they can wait until the exact time that voting begins and hit refresh repeatedly until a non-existant or inconvenient venue is one of the choices. Once the first person votes, the choices are locked.

2. You can register for as many accounts as you want as long as you have a different valid email address and nickname. For example, I happen to have 5 email addresses, so I could register and vote for the bad venue 5 times. For smaller Meetups it would only take a few people deciding to screw around to ruin a Meetup.

As easy as that you can have a group of people heading to the wrong location. I'm sure computer experts could think of even easier ways.

[Adjoran]

33. There's no way to know

who really is behind it. If the Dean people were doing it, would they have left a contact number that identified them?

The most likely answer is that someone wanted to screw with Clark and put the blame on Dean.

Rove is best known for manipulating major media coverage. If this is his work, it's a new trick.

Heck, there are plenty of "hacker communities" on the internet, composed of computer-savvy kids who might find it fun to stir up some trouble in the ranks, without any real political motives.

Anonymity is the internet's blessing, and its curse. Once a site like Meetup.com becomes well known, it becomes a target for mischief of all sorts.

[JNelson6563]

39. This is a good point

If the Dean people were doing it, would they have left a contact number that identified them?

Even here in ourlittle burg the original meet-ups were messed up in a similar way as theoriginal post here describes. The core of us got together and decided on one venue every time that could accomodate us as we grow. We worked around the confusion somebodyorother tried to cause and now have successful meetings, same place, every month.

I have to say though, it never occured to me to use the attepts to de-rail our meetings as a stick to beat other candidates with on DU. I was apparently not nearly vicious-minded enough to realize it was a wonderful tool to use in insulting any and all supporters of the other candidates too.

Gee I learn so much here in GD, from some very dedicated teachers of nastiness. You're not one of them Adjoran, I just decided to add that part after commenting on your post.

Ah unity! And we wonder why we hold nothing.

Julie

[RandomUser]

42. Question

Were your meetups redirected to other candidates?

And as I've indicated, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that the dean supporters were behind this, and even then, it would not take all of them, only a few bad apples. I agree that it would most likely not be a concerted effort by Dean or Trippi, but at most an effort by some rogue Dean supporters, if that.

The victim of the sabotage felt different, and is entitled to his opinion.

As for nastiness, you will not find me in any of the Dean bash threads, or in any pro-dean thread spouting anti-Dean remarks.

Edited to add: But I do see many Dean supporters in this thread who can't say they've shown the same restraint with Clark. You are not one of those, Julie, and I respect that.

[JNelson6563]

56. Answer

No, the meet-up mix-up had no other campaign to be directed to here actually. At the time there was none. Clark people are trying to get started now though.

It wouldn't surprise me if it was R's as this is an R stronghold. We're ready if they want to try anything though. ;-)

Thanks for doing your part to keep the dialogue civil. Maybe if enough of us were to.....nevermind. No need go gettin' all idealistic!

Julie

[Hep]

40. Someone needs to CHILL

Dean did this Dean did this? Gimme a break! Dean doesn't give a shit what clark meetup people do. To insinuate that Dean is behind it is idiotic.

The Dean campaign has a series of conference calls every month to discuss agendas for meetups and things like that. Just about every one of these calls has been loaded with complaints about meetup.com. If you pay meetup a certain amount of money, you can nominate vemnues for meetups. Dean people here have been dealing with rogue meetup hosts ever since the campaign took off in June.

To claim that this is some kind of concerted effort to sabotage Clark is inane. Perhaps there's a jerk loose in that community. He doesn't speak for Dean or Dean's campaign. But no. this is NOT about Dean "cheating"

This is about Clark people who don't appear able to control their meetups.

When they saw this new venue pop up, did they try to contact the person who nominated it in advance? Did Clark supporters get together and organize their meetups? Meetup.com goes out of it's way to provide people with the flexibility to do what they need to, but they were never ready for this kind of increase in services. They're still very difficult to deal with in some circumstances. It puts more burden on the hosts, but you have to do the work.

[Octafish]

44. Kick.

Cheaters never prosper. LMAO.

[Hep]

45. Dean

also has a yahoo group devoted to looking up Dean gatherings for assigned zip codes and reporting false or suspicious ones. Safeguards are important.

[knowledgeispower]

47. I concur

This is just silly.

[CMT]

41. this is getting silly, imo

anything that happens is automatically blamed on Dean or Dean supporters. Dean and his campaign have more important things to do than play idiotic dirty tricks on some meetup venue for the Clark campaign in Cincinnatti. It is so obvious that it would be traced back to Dean and cause the type of bad-will that it wouldn't be worth doing. Dean and Trippi and his campaign is savvy enough to understand that we need Clark, Kerry, Edwards, Gephardt, ect people in November. I know when we have our meetups we aren't conspiring what we are going to do to Clark or the rest of them but we are planning what we are going to do to get Dean's message known.

[sendero]

43. the annointed ones...

.... are losing control and they don't like it :)

[mzmolly]

46. No way Dean supporters would sabatoge by directing the group to Dean.

It had to be another campaign or the work of Rove...

[Patriot_Spear]

53. Any reason to bash Dean is a good reason...

Geez, how lame can you get...

HELP, HELP! IT'S RAINING! BLAME DEAN!

...christ.