Mark Hemingway, the NRO reporter who broke the story about all the connections between Mitt Romney and Western Wats responds to Target Points denial.
He starts with some questions that are as-yet-unanswered:
- Are you still working with Western Wats?
- When was the last time they worked for you?
- What kind of work did they do for you?
- Did Western Wats work on any pro-Romney projects with you?
- Why were you involved with a firm that has been repeatedly accused of push polling?
- Why did you not issue a statement clarifying your involvement with the firm right when the story broke?
Target Point has already refused to answer them:
I asked these questions over the phone, and they refused to comment on any of the specifics beyond the statement they issued yesterday. "We put out a statement yesterday that made it clear we had nothing to do with these calls. We’re not going to get into how we run our business," their spokesman said. …
Hemingway also points out how important it is to drill down on this:
So it all comes down to whether or not you think that even posing the question about whether the Romney campaign could have been involved in the calls is somehow inappropriate. I don’t think it is. The skulduggery of Presidential politics is such that this kind speculation isn’t out of bounds for any candidate, including Romney. (As proof of this, one of Mitt’s official bloggers Justin Hart at mymanmitt.com admits he was prepared to run with a story headlined "Gage Firm: We Did It. Don’t Blame Romney.") And I did not merely speculate — I provided new evidence and I also provided pro-Romney balance as well. I am only invested in determining who made the calls, not in proving Romney was behind them.
