Morganelli Takes Responsibility For EMail Gaffe

Someone in John Morganelli's attorney general campaign camp has sent an anonymous email, smearing potential rival Chris Casey. This email account was originally set up, years ago, for use by John's son. So Brett Lieberman at Pennsyltucky Politics disputes John's claim that this bulk email is "the sleazy work of an overzealous campaign volunteer, who was now using the account." He labels this expanation "an excuse that seems to defy logic and one we hope he would never use in a courtroom."

I believed this was the work of campaign consultant Tom Severson, who loves to hurl anonymous smears. In May, Severson sent vicious anonymous mailings that attacked a magisterial candidate. Someone also suggested Lamont McClure, a Morganelli backer who managed John's unsuccessful 2000 campaign. McClure, in his May campaign for county council, was called McMud after mailing attack ads that brought up his opponent's dead brother.

But John Morganelli, who knows the facts a little better than the rest of us, has set me straight. He specifically denies that his son, Severson or McClure are involved. Let him tell you in his own words.

Bernie

I would appreciate it if you would rewrite your blog with my corrected information. Severson (and McClure) know nothing about all of this.

This email address was purchased many, many years ago and is one of 5 email addresses we have in our family. It was used by my oldest son UNTIL 2001 when he went to school at Villanova, at which time he began to use his Villanova email address. The address was dormant for 6 years (2001-2007) and accumulated hundreds and hundreds of spam mail. Recently, we cleaned it up and it was made available for use by the campaign to use as another email address for my e mail campaign to various email lists. Since my son did not use it for 6 years, rather than get a new one, we just decided to use this one. Unfortunately, a person sent emails that were misleading in terms of their origin and content. Because it was my son who used this 6 years ago as his email address, people thought it was my son. It was NOT my son. My son had no access to the state dem committee lists nor would he would have any of the information about the candidates' positions on the issues that were in the emails. He doesnt follow politics and has never been involved in any of my campaigns including this one except to drive me to places occasionally.

The press account tried to suggest more recent use of the address by my son because the call letters- IBX21 are used by him on his facebook account and other such accounts used by hs and college students. However, the facebook account and other such websites that my son used do NOT involve the email account at AOL. The screen name IBX21 is NOT an email account-- When my son stopped using the AOL account 6 years ago and changed all his outgoing and incoming mail to his Villanova.edu account, he retained the call letters IBX21 on facebook and other such sites like AIM. This is used ONLY as a screen name for instant messaging-- the 2 are NOT related. The press account attempted to imply that since he uses the screen name that means he is using the AOL account. He has not and is not.

Severson is NOT involved with this stuff. He does direct old fashioned mail. MCClure is not involved with this at all. I take responsibility for this and have said so. I need more control overbulk email operations. I have now decided that we will use ONLY one email address-- this is my personal one and I ALWAYS identify myself. I have personally communicated my regrets and apology to Chris Casey, Jim Eisenhower and members of the state committee and hope they were not in any way inconvenienced. As a final thought, after 2 errant emails in my campaign in a short time, I may resort to only the good ole US post office where I actually sign my name to mail. Thank you, Bernie for always being fair to me -- but I want to make sure others who really had nothing to do with this are not blamed.

Evening Update: The Morning Call's John Micek tells us John Morganelli has done more than apologize. He has fired those responsible for the snarky email. "Morganelli did not name those responsible, but he did say they're no longer with his campaign."