Professor Anita Hill justifiably would dispute the inaccurate statement that Specter has been a “champion for women.” In her case, he was an abuser, and he did so in order to put fellow abuser Clarence Thomas, a right-wing, unqualified judicial activist on the bench. Of course his support of Thomas was to curry political favor from the right wing after he voted against Judge Bork. He voted against Judge Bork in order to curry favor from the rest of us. Truth is that Specter believes in nothing but himself. And he could care less about women except to the extent that it serves his self-interest.

There is no way that anyone who treated Anita Hill the way that Arlen did could possibly be good for women. He was happy to sweep sexual harassment under the rug when it suited him politically. If we send him back to the Senate, who knows if he will do it again when it’s convenient for him. Voting against abortion rights when it is politcally advantagous. NO DICE.

Who are Sestak’s possible replacements for that district?

Yeakel should talk to some former Sestak staffers about the criteria that has been used by his office for hiring female employees.

Smart, intelligent, hard-working, dedicated, passionate — qualities that are admirable and seen in all of Joe’s female and male staff members.
Reflective of Joe’s upbringing by his parents and seen in his six sisters.

Mary Pat-
You really need to talk to more former female staffers and their reasons for leaving.

Very thin ice, David. Given your inappropriate behavior toward a female staffer that was the main reason for your dismissal from the Sestak campaign in 2006, this in particular is a topic on which you have no credibility at all to be making scurrilous allegations.

Mario Cimino
D – Morton Borough Council

Is Joe Sestak intending a critique on Arlen Specter’s record on womens’ issues? Of so, which aspect of Senator Specter’s record does he mean?

Mario-
What the hell are you talking about?
I was never a staffer on the campaign in the first place, so I couldn’t be “dismissed”. Like, Vince, once the campaign was up an running and filled with regular staff, I stepped back to spend more time with the other campaigns and my full time job. I was also getting pissed with how the Sestak staffers had NO interest in helping the other campaigns.
Even so, I was there the week before the election helping you guys with a list of election judges and the occasional problem with a computer or reading a file.
I was after the primary, when the office started to expand, that I asked the campaign to hire a full time computer/network guy because I was tired of running over to the office every time someone accidentally unplugged a cable or pressed the reset button (next to the “DO NOT TOUCH” note). How “dismissed” was I when Joe personally called me at home to come over and fix his laptop when he was working on a speech?
I have NO idea what female staffer you are talking about, but email me privately and I’d be happy to address what you are saying and put that rumor to rest.
If you agree to keep it confidential, I’ll explain my remarks here to you. Rest assured, the Sestak people know exactly what and who I’m talking about, though they probably didn’t know that I knew about it.

In all fairness to Specter on the womens’ issue, I did forget to note that he was a strong supporter of Sarah Palin. Now that says something about him and women.

So Sestak hires women based on looks? Is that whats being said? Holy cow, hes gone thru staffers… ud think they caught the plague there? Whats the reason for it. I heard he treats them like dirt??? Is this true?

Sestak’s only concern is Sestak and keeping a high-profile job and to hell with America. According to Dom Giordano, he’s LEFT of Specter!
Sestak should clarify why the Navy forced his retirment for poor command climate – a nice way of saying “you’re fired buddy!” We need to know more about his people skills – then we can talk election stuff! How ’bout it Joe – VOTE THE BUM OUT IN 2010!

David:

You’ve been on this site slandering Joe Sestak and his whole family with rumor and innuendo in 1,001 different ways for the better part of a year, disingenuously trying to pass a personal vendetta off as legitimate policy debate. I’m recounting one specific episode that is verifiable by any number of people, involving a stipulation of a private meeting with a female staffer as a condition for exchange of campaign information. At the very least something that any woman would find insulting and demeaning. And predicatably you’re angry because I didn’t afford you the courtesy of discretion. See the irony?

Morton Magician—

Politics is s tough business and tell Sestak he should get a helmet or get out. Im not from out east, but I as well as many others have found David Diano’s input on multiple issues and past actions quite insightful as to how Joe Sestak really operates. This is why you are troubled… because Joe’s selfishness and arrogance has been exposed, while all the time you and other Sestak cheerleaders expect a free pass to take shots at Specter.
Great work in keeping us informed David Diano about the Real Joe Sestak.

Mario-
Now you’ve got me curious. What kind of campaign information are you talking about?

All the information I ever had was Voter information available in my voter program. I’d been providing it to local Dems since 2004, long before Joe arrived on the scene. The campaign was using my data since I set up their Internet connection. So, I can’t imagine what kind of “campaign data” I could be exchanging, since that’s all I had and you guys already had it.

Anyway, you’ve got my phone number. Call me.

Sen. Specter is known as THE WORST pol to have to work for. He is voted that banner every year in DC. He used to make one female staffer cry such that she used to slide drafts of materials under his office door so as not to have to encounter him directly. This is all moot. Sestak is going CRUSH Specter. Anyone who can’t see that Arlen Specter is the epitime of what is wrong with our Democracy needs to have his head examined. He courts the right-wing Romeo when it suits him. For crying out loud, he admitted to voting for SARAH PALIN.

The funny thing is that of all the petty picky political things that two people have written about Sestak, it all pales in comparison to the absolute evil that Specter has perpetrated over his years in the Senate. So Sestak hasn’t helped other Democrats. Big F-ing deal. He has not harmed the nation as Specter has in the name of promoting his own self-interest. Get some perspective.

Dave Diano-Your attempt to smear Joe Sestak because of some weird personal grudge is sad, especially in that it will probably be used by some equally ill-informed Specter/Toomey people to try to defeat him. I am a female who worked in the Sestak campaign for over 8 months. Yes people, of both sexes, have left Joe’s employ, but not for the sick reasons you insinuate. Is Joe hard to work for? Yes-because he demands a tremendous amount of effort from his people; maybe too much sometimes, but I never observed anything close to inappropriate behavior on Joe Sestak’s part.

Well, im looking at statistics Brava… and it looks like sestaks staffers caught the plague or something. Although ive heard rumors of poor command climate (again) by Joe.

Brava-
I’m not sure where you got “sick” from what I was saying. I’m not implying that anyone made a sexual advance.
However, the circumstances under which a particular staffer quit were directly related to sexually demeaning and wholly inappropriate statements made to her during a berating by one of Joe’s inner circle. In a regular company with an HR department to protect employees, such behavior from management would never have been tolerated.

Joe’s top people are an extension of him. They do what he wants in the way he wants to enact the policies he wants.

The hostile workplace environment that has resulted in record turnover among staffers is a direct result of Joe’s management style and how people are treated in these jobs.

Anonymous-
Then it looks like Specter has some serious competition for worst boss.
During the summer, I met a staffer on the current campaign. She told me about how Sestak had some high-school kid in charge of student organizing and the kid went home crying every night. She also told me that when she was volunteering for the Obama campaign in 2008 she met a congressional staffer who worked for Specter. This staffer not only had praise for Specter, who gave her time off to work for Obama, but she also had mentioned that Sestak had a bad reputation. This was WELL before there was any inkling of a Senate match-up, and was merely someone with experience passing her knowledge off to a younger person.
The Specter campaign staffers that I have met so far, seem like a happier bunch that the Sestak staffers I’ve known. The Specter people actually expressed sympathy for the Sestak staffers as kindred spirits stuck with a bad boss.

WestDem-
You make a good point. Sestak’s always going on about bringing his “military-style” of management to civilian policies. But, he was relieved of command for his version/style from the military itself. That says something.
As a Congressman, Sestak really has no watchdog that can fire or reprimand him if he mistreats his employees.

Brava’s experience as posted above closely echoes mine, which I have posted here several times before, as well as the vast majority of the former Sestak staffers I know. Working for Joe Sestak takes the stamina of an Olympic athlete, because that is the level of stamina Sestak himself was God-given. That’s what it takes to keep up with him, but he’ll never ask anyone to work harder than he is willing to work himself. He is a lifetime military officer and everyone who signs on to work for him can fairly expect the job to echo the demands of the military. And can anyone serously question that a military-quality staff is not fundamentally required by the workload of Congress? From most that standard earns respect, from a few it draws out bitter resentment. So be it. But given the monumental tasks at hand in Congress, a person who can work day in and day out, and build a staff willing and able to do the same not because it’s what’s personally rewarding, but because it’s what needs to be done right now, is exactly the person who should be in that position.

For my part, I ran 6 months of that gauntlet during a critical time of the 2006 campaign and that was quite enough as a full time avocation. That’s not an uncommon tour of duty on Sestak’s staff. But I can guarantee these things: every one of those staffers came away with the equivalent of a four year degree in policy and organizing, and nearly all are out using those battle tested skills in other places from Delaware County to California (Which is why the notion that Sestak hasn’t helped the party and the cause is so misleading and offensive.) More importantly, they all have the satisfaction that their work has been leveraged to the greatest extent possible by Congressman Sestak to help real people in the PA 7th district and across the nation. That is an excellent command climate, and I firmly believe that Pennsylvania will be best served by allowing Sestak to further leverage all that hard work in the United States Senate.

Mario Cimino
D – Morton Borough Council
Volunteer Coordinator, Sestak for Congress ’06

Mario-
I pretty much agree with most of what you said. I’ve never questioned that Sestak works harder than is possible for most humans. I don’t agree that what he asks of others (while no more than what he gives) is always reasonable.
Burning people out after six-months and having high turnover doesn’t seem particularly productive.

Also, it’s been my long-standing believe that the campaign office was run in a very chaotic/disorganized manner (I’m not alone in this observation). I felt that there was tremendous inefficiency in the operation, duplication of effort, failures to communicate and a “do-as-your-told” philosophy over one of “collaboration and feedback”. The enlisted personnel don’t question the officers.

It worked in 2006 because Sestak’s strategy was overwhelming firepower and he had plenty of resources to waste.
For the Senate race, the micro-management inner-circle style just doesn’t scale well to a state-wide contest with multiple headquarters. Add to that a lack of infrastructure (support from the party leaders and elected officials) and it’s and even bigger uphill battle. Joe hasn’t won a lot of friends, and he “owes” more favors than he is owed.

My concern is that Joe is going to wasted a lot of energy on this primary campaign that will drain resources we need to fight Toomey and Meehan. The problem is that Joe is so hard-working and inefficient that he will burn more resources than a typical long-shot candidate.

Joe’s already shifted $3 million dollars that was raised for the 7th District, into his Senate campaign. Think how much Bryan could do with even half of that!!

The silver lining here is that once Sestak loses the Primary, all his Delco staffers can work to help the 7th district congressional race.

Thank you Mortan Magican for bringing to light that David Diano was dismissed from the Sestak campaign because of inappropriate behavior. Now makes sense all the slander that Mr. Diano has put forth toward Joe and his staff on this web-site.

It’s crazy that everything that Mr.Diano says on this site is not based on any first-hand knowledge — Mr. Diano posted he left Joe’s campaign over 3 years ago and has never worked with Joe since that time in either Joe’s federal office or campaign office. Everything is just made up by Mr. Diano since that time … its always a personal attack on Joe.

So Joe makes his staff work hard… ya think!! So what! Hello? Anyone home there Mr. Diano and WestPADem6??? The absurdity of your personal attacks.

Joe and his staff are public servants – they work for us. Finally, an elected official who brings accountability and standards of excellence to his Congressional offices and campaign teams.

Joe’s office has passed more pieces of legislation over the past two years than anyone else in the PA Congressional Delegation, including both Senators Cassey and Specter. You have a problem with that?

Joe’s office has helped over 12,000 constituents over the past 2 years; the Congressional average is a third of that. You have a problem with that?

Joe’s office is open 7 days a week with evening hours to help the residents of his District. You have a problem with that?

Talk about an elected official that actually practices “good governance”!!

Don’t knock a public official for him and his staff’s strong work ethic. Next time you have an emergency and need to reach your Congressman’s office (other than Joe’s) after 4:30 pm or on the weekend, you think they’ll be someone there to answer the phone and help you?

Joe and his staff rock!!

Mary Pat-
I was never “dismissed” from the campaign, and was still involved and helping them out right until election day. As a matter of fact, I was dealing with Mario himself the last week of the campaign cleaning up the list of polling places and election judges. I had provided to the campaign a software program for their website that allowed voters to lookup their polling places. That particular email to Mario is dated 10/28/2006.

What Mario and some of the Sestak people portray as a “grudge” was actually a theft of service from me by the campaign and a failure to compensate me as had been agreed. Mario was not only aware of it at the time, but advised me that I was foolish to think they would actually honor their end of the agreement.

Just because I haven’t worked for Joe, does not mean that I haven’t been in contact with staffers that have left or committee people and candidates that have continued to deal with him. I didn’t become blind and deaf.

I couldn’t give a rat’s @ss about Joe’s constituent-services stat as a single raw count, out of context. First of all, you have to look at it from a perspective of man-hours and type of request. Is it important stuff like the foreclosure help, or is it stupid stuff like expediting passports for people too impatient to wait their turn? Handling 12,000 requests doesn’t mean that they were all resolved successfully. One person I spoke to complained that some grant request was so bungled by the inexperienced office staff that she had to rewrite it herself before it could be turned in.

Joe’s staff is underpaid and overworked (even among congressional staffers). If anybody in PA needs UNION for workers’ rights, it’s these people.

For what possible “emergency” would I ever need to reach a congressman’s office, particularly Sestak’s?
The only “emergency” I did call about was in May 2007 before Joe voted to abandon his campaign promise and give Bush a blank check in Iraq. That “emergency” constituent request was not handled to my satisfaction.

While I don’t particularly like Joe, I was willing to accept him staying on as Congressman to protect the 7th district seat from the GOP. And, while I’m happy to replace him with someone like Lentz or Vitali, I feel he’s let his ambition put both his House seat, the Senate seat and some legislative seats in unnecessary jeopardy.
Joe (strangely) likes to talk about how much he enjoyed leading men into harm’s way. I would prefer if he led Dems out of harm’s way.

To tie up some loose ends here:

With regard to the compensation David Diano claims is owed to him by the Sestak campaign, I’ve issued this challenge before and David has had provided nothing of substance in response. Let’s try again: David, please produce some formal evidence showing that there ever was any agreement for compensation for services. If you had such evidence, you’ve had 3 years to pursue this supposed “theft of services” through due process, and have done nothing along those lines. Instead all anyone has heard is a lot of sour grapes that you’ve built up into a full scale campaign of slander and character assassination against not only Joe Sestak, a public figure, but his entire family, most of whom are not public figures.

The reason Mr. Diano can’t produce any evidence of a formal agreement for services is because there never was one, and the primary reason there never was one was the episode I’ve unfortunately felt compelled by the circumstances to relate above, involving the unprofessional and inappropriate request for a private meeting with a female staffer.

That gets to the ultimate irony. David Diano has singlehandedly destroyed any chance of success for his own business. First by acting inappropriately in what should have been the most important negotiation of his career. Secondly and most importantly, by assuring that not even a politician as crazy as Lyndon LaRouche would engage his services because everyone now knows that if such a relationship ever sours, their reward will be an endless campaign of public slander and vitriol against them by David Diano. Who on earth would take on that kind of relationship, let alone pay money for it? And somehow in Mr. Diano’s mind he’s twisted that around to Joe Sestak being responsible for his own foolish judgment.

You dug this hole whole all by yourself, David, not Joe Sestak, not me, nor anybody else. Learn from it, move on, but for everyone’s sake please stop this fraudulent and disgraceful campaign of slander.

Mario Cimino
D – Morton Borough Council

Mario-
Thanks for bringing up the issue in a way I can address directly.

I had a specific hand-shake agreement with Bill Walsh in his official roll as Campaign Manager (and all the “honor and integrity” of his 30 years of military service). This occurred when I caught the campaign STEALING data from my system to form a separate database. I informed Bill, in his office, that this was an impermissible use of my system and for them to cease and desist. This was in July as the campaign was switching over to the Sage system for the coordinated campaign with Rendell and Casey, who were using that system.
Bill told me that they didn’t have time to enter the phone number data they had been collecting into both systems, but that I was due the data. He PROMISED me that when the campaign ended, I could have a copy of whatever data they had.
On Bill’s word, I agreed to let the campaign continue using my system.

After the campaign ended, on Dec 10th, 2006, I sent an email to Joe Sestak with cc: to Bill Walsh and Mario. The email reiterated the terms of the agreement. Mario was included as the most computer literate staffer that could help with the transfer.

The email made it clear that the data-exchange would be compensation for the 2006 campaign. However, future services (if any) would involve a negotiated fee, but any future agreement was separate from the existing agreement for prior services rendered.

I had no expectation of future business with Sestak’s campaign. Getting money out of Joe harder than getting blood out of a stone. I was interested in getting what was promised and owed to me, and being on my way.

If Joe or Bill had even one ounce of integrity they would have responded. If there was a dispute over my version, Joe could have sat us all down to go over the matter, or even emailed a denial.
Instead, he chose to ignore the matter, perhaps in hopes I would go away. (We see how well that worked out.)

Mario, your argument appears to be that:
I was foolish to accept the word of a 30-year Vet like Bill Walsh, or expect 31-year Vet, like Sestak, to honor (or at least contact me to investigate) my claim.

I’m not sure how your argument amounts to a defense of Sestak. You can make up any story you want, but the Truth is the Truth. If I can’t count on a hand-shake agreement with someone, then paper agreement with such a person is worthless to me, because I’d be dealing with someone untrustworthy.

You can “laugh” at me for relying upon a verbal agreement, but such an agreement is binding between people of good character. I honored my end, so I know where I stand. I’m responsible for my judgment in trusting someone, but Joe is responsible for his own actions and those of his staff.

I could have chosen to litigate the matter (and did consider it), the legal costs would have outweighed any gains. Also, I could not hope to match the financial resources of Joe’s campaign fund. Joe could have also chosen to act with integrity and come to me, man-to-man, to discuss my email. He had three years to do that. He didn’t. Too late for that now.

Litigation is expensive and beyond my means. Blogging is free. The Truth is priceless. And a politician without integrity is worthless (and all too common).

BTW, Mario, the real irony is how Joe failed to capitalize on the good will offered, donated and invested in him by responding in kind to help his fellow Democrats in his district. While Joe is scrounging for endorsements outside his district, my computer system and user base has continued to grow, and has more than doubled in the past three years, and continues to grow.
Because Joe has failed to built real, altruistic relationships, he hasn’t earned enough friends and allies. While I have certainly p1ssed off a great many people, I’ve also helped plenty of grateful candidates and committee people.
The difference is that after May 2010, Sestak will be history, and I’ll still be standing.

And FOR THE RECORD, I WANT any candidate that would consider acting unethically with me to be on notice and well informed to steer clear of me. Candidates who act honorably and with integrity not only have nothing to fear from me, but would find me a great defender of their honor and generous in my support.

As far as this alleged “unprofessional request for a private meeting” with some female staffer, can you (in your words) “produce some formal evidence”??

I have copies of every email exchange I ever had with any Sestak staffer, and there is not a single “inappropriate” remark or request. There is rarely even an email I sent to anyone that was not cc’ed to Bill, Richard, you, Ryan or some other key staffer, unless it was to forward a previous conversation and bring someone into the loop.
Your remarks on this blog are the FIRST time I’ve ever heard any such claim has been brought to my attention. No one ever came to me and suggested I had done anything inappropriate. Had anyone the common sense to ask me at the time, whatever miscommunication started this could have been cleared up.

That said, it’s perfectly plausible that someone could have misinterpreted a request to sit down one-to-one to go over data. I pretty much asked everybody to sit down one-to-one because I found large meetings to be useless. I used to ask George to join me for dinner at Outback to talk about campaign stuff outside of the campaign office. I had plenty of complaints about how Bill and Richard were running the campaign that I couldn’t discuss at the office. Gee, I hope he didn’t think I was coming on to him, too. Even, Joe used to tell me that after the campaign he wanted to take me out for a beer. Should I have been concerned he was coming on to me?

If you (or anyone else) believed that I had any romantic or prurient interest in any of the staffers (male or female) then you were projecting your own fantasies, desires or egos onto a situation as might occur in a sitcom like “Three’s Company”. I realize you guys in the campaign were sleep deprived, but I didn’t realize that you had begun to hallucinate.
I hope no one “timed me” if I checked out ample cleavage or a nice rear-end when it came into my field of vision.

And, not that it’s any of your business, but the girl I was actually romantically interested in at the time never even met Sestak nor set foot in his office (though I did take her to a campaign related event near Media).

David, the problem here is the same one as always: I don’t know of anyone else who believes that there was ever any agreement by writing, handshake, or otherwise because there no evidence, just like there is never anything but rumor and innuendo offered with regard to all of the other absurd allegations you’ve made about Joe Sestak, his family, and his staff. So hopefully the readers will evaluate your claims with that track record in mind. What is it that suggests to the readers that they should beleive your far-flung, uncorroborated allegations over Joe Sestak, who has been subject to 3 decades of military accountability and 3 years as pretty much the most publicly accessible official in the county? Your Superman ring?

Further, there is absolutely nothing to back up your claim that data was stolen or otherwise misappropriated from your system. Since you didn’t actually go out and collect any of that data IT NEVER BELONGED TO YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE. Most of it was data obtained through the hard work of the Sestak staff and volunteers. The rest was publicly available voter roll data that is the basis for every campaign database system. You’ve already confirmed that there was no formal agreement, so any right you incorrectly believed that you had to that data was, is now, and ever will be in your own mind.

With regard to your standard for doing business:

“And FOR THE RECORD, I WANT any candidate that would consider acting unethically with me to be on notice and well informed to steer clear of me. Candidates who act honorably and with integrity not only have nothing to fear from me, but would find me a great defender of their honor and generous in my support.”

That still means that EVERY candidate would be well informed to steer clear of you because your “business” doesn’t even have the most basic protocols or recordkeeping, which makes it extremely convenient for you do arbitrarily decide at any time that anyone is treating you “unethically” based on a standard of “ethics” that exists only in your own mind. And then embark on a years long slander campaign against them.

Mario Cimino
D – Morton Borough Council

Mario-
Do you have any idea how clueless you are about the kind of information that is available in these databases, and the kinds of data I added? However, you are 100% wrong in your contention: “Most of it was data obtained through the hard work of the Sestak staff and volunteers.”

The FACT of the matter is that they used hard and soft copies of my data to create and update their own database. When they made phone calls from my lists, they didn’t put updated information back into my system. They didn’t want to share data with other Democrats and candidates.

Think about it: if they had put data into my system in the first place, why would I be complaining that they weren’t honoring a promise to give me data? Why would I need something I already had?

Anyway, this is all smoke a mirrors. There is a clear and public record of my blogging in support of Sestak through April 2007 (long after the unresolved issues regarding my computer system). I also have a stream of emails going right through election day showing me working with the campaign and other Delco Democrats (including you, Mario).

My very public attacks on Sestak originated with his vote to give Bush a blank check on Iraq, and not standing up for the principle of “timetables” that was core to his campaign promises. I not only blogged about it immediately as a betrayal, but got a letter to the editor published that was more widely read. I wrote the campaign an email severing my contacts for donations and support. My fury was based on his vote deviating from his campaign stance.
He compounded that error a month later with his vote (against party) to fund Cheney’s office.

This is the source of the vitriol. The other matter I’ve chalked up to “a lesson learned” about trusting Sestak’s campaign.

The way the campaign was handled, I how was treated, and the disrespect shown to the local Dems added to my understanding of how things worked on planet-Sestak.

Mario, you can support Joe all you want and may have had a wonderful experience on the campaign. However, that doesn’t change the reality of my experience or my motivations.

I’m glad I was able to draw you out so people can see how the damage control operation works on planet Sestak.

Morton—

Seems like Dianos argument is a little more plausible. Your logic that its ok to misrepresent and then take someones voter roll information because they didnt get it… objectively…im not so sure id agree with that justification. That was his property it seems to me. I am a little confused with your logic.

David:

Thank you for finally fessing up that all of this endless vitriol stems from Sestak’s Iraq vote. I understand that that offends you deeply as a extreme Liberal, though it’s very misguided. So argue all you want about that policy decision But how exactly does that justify the endless personal attacks on Sestak and his family?

On the claims about your contacts in latter 2006 and 2007, I’m sure you did e-mail me during the fall. What the proper Diano-ethics response have been? To return the e-mails unopened? To my knowledge, that isn’t technically possible. With regard to your writing in support of Sestak until the spring of 2007, that makes complete sense now that you’ve admitted that this is all about anger over the Iraq vote in 2007.

On the issue of the data:

David Diano worte:

“Do you have any idea how clueless you are about the kind of information that is available in these databases, and the kinds of data I added? However, you are 100% wrong in your contention: “Most of it was data obtained through the hard work of the Sestak staff and volunteers.”

The FACT of the matter is that they used hard and soft copies of my data to create and update their own database. When they made phone calls from my lists, they didn’t put updated information back into my system.”

So what is this mysterious data that belongs to you then? The voter roll information is public record. My point that WESTPADEM6 missed is that there would be no need to copy that because every other campaign database system, including the Sage Systems database that the Sestak campaign switched to when it became untenable to work with yours, is built on the same data from the public voter rolls. Transferring that data to a new campaign database would be completely redundant. So what is the data that you claim was taken? Aside from the public voter roll records, what would be in there aside from data that Sestak’s own campaign collected? If there was some other non-public information in there, what documentation is there to show it ever existed, and what documentation is there that YOU had permission to take such data from these other phantom campaigns and sell it? There’s no documentation about anything else you’ve claimed, so my bet is it doesn’t exist.

Finally, I just want to be clear, David: Are you alleging that I am somehow in cahoots with Sestak’s campaign in bringing this all out? I left Sestak’s campaign staff in January 2007 when he was sworn in and have had no formal role since then. What are you going to claim as the basis for this allegation? Another one of your imagined conversations with some mystery Sestak staffer?

Mario Cimino
D – Morton Borough Council

Mario-
Joe’s Iraq votes and the complete betrayal they represented to the voters, volunteers and especially the troops is completely unforgivable. Maybe, you are just a latecomer to my very public arguments against Sestak, but that vote has always been the catalyst. I wrote published letters to the Delco Times against Joe’s votes.

It’s the Sestak drones that have put forth the fiction that my vitriol was rooted in anything else. You jumped on that same fictional bandwagon. Now, you can get off it and back to reality.

I’m not sure what you are trying to say about the etiquette of returning unopened emails???
I’m not just talking about emails that I send to you, but also ones that you and others on the campaign sent to me asking for my help. (like, the voter polling place lookup feature that was linked directly from the campaign website to my site and software)

You claimed (in your first post in this thread), that I was “dismissed” from the campaign, when the reality is that I was involved in a technical capacity right through the end. I’ve even got a personal email from Joe in September stating: “I did want you know that the change in our direct mailing strategy was a direct result of your input.”

The voter database contains almost no phone numbers. In Delco there are less than 18,000 numbers for 390,000 voters. Most of these numbers are from the original voter forms years ago and out of date.
I populated my phone number data using existing data from the much-maligned Delco Dems, and the Montco Dems and my own software to data-mine public directories and match them to voters. It was a reciprocal relationship, where each party got new numbers in return (or confirmation of existing numbers), and I helped clean up their databases.

I also provided my own scoring system to identify, sort and filter super voters (there is no “supervoter” flag in the database), computed various statistics, and provided a reorganization of the raw data into a useful form. The campaign used this value-added information to make their calls and contacts. The feedback to my system was supposed to be identifying disconnected/wrong numbers and contribute new numbers they developed, contact information with volunteers, and other useful information they obtained about voters they called, including emails.
Basically, it was to be an enhancement/cleanup of my data, based upon any information they developed from using my data in the first place. Mine was the only voter system they had for the first six months of the campaign.

As for how I caught them stealing… one of the workers was given the job of walking through my screens for each precinct and saving the data to Excel files. He ran into some computer problem when I was in the office, and wound up coming to me for help. Once I realized that he was doing a data dump from my proprietary system, I confronted Bill Walsh and explained how such data capture was not permitted, especially because the campaign hadn’t contributed any data in return.

Think about it, Mario. If I wasn’t getting money from the campaign, what was I getting in exchange for months of my professional services and computer system????
Sage wasn’t giving their services away for free though you (erroneously) claimed they, I and every other voter system had the same public data.
I wasn’t making an in-kind contribution. The value of my system and services exceeded the legal contribution limit. Sage was charging around $25,000 to $30,000 for a congressional district, and their voter data was behind mine.
(Email from Ryan on Oct 20th, 2006 confirmed that Sage data was from Sept 23rd. VoterWeb had final Oct 18th snapshot, including the final data registrations.)

I had provided a valuable service and had agreed to take payment in the form of a data transfer. It would have cost the campaign ZERO to give me the data, since it was developed as a by-product of the efforts they were already making from using my system.

I realize we’ve gotten a bit off track here, but I thought it was a good opportunity to educate some of the regular readers about voter databases, since it is one of my areas of expertise. A lot goes into processing, manipulating, reformatting, and sometimes correcting these databases.

For about a month or so this past year, the PA Dept of State was unable to provide the voter files due to problems from a transfer of the data to a new system. Even when they finally released the database, there were errors like: “123 MAIN ST ST” (Yep, ST twice).
Politicians act like when you get the voter file from the state, you just pop the disk into a computer and Lo and Behold .. there’s a user interface, searches and everything.
The actual county files are tens or hundreds of megabytes of text separated by commas, with dozens of encoded fields, that have different meanings that vary with county.
While the files can be imported into Access to generate simple mass mailing lists, they are almost useless without a serious investment of time and computer programming.

Mario, I’m not saying you are in “cahoots”, but you do have a lot of similar debunked talking points. As for Joe’s family.. I have a low opinion of his brother both as a political operative and as a person. That’s from personal observation and a consensus opinion among the people I’m friends with.
I don’t have a problem with the sisters (I think they are very nice people), other than they are examples of Joe’s nepotism and bunker mentality. They are not professional political people. It’s my opinion that Joe’s reliance on them, over more qualified professionals, has been detrimental. He’s just not getting enough diversity of opinion and experience by having such a tight inner circle. It’s NOT meant to be a slam of them personally.