Obama ex-campaign manager Jim Messina signs on as campaign adviser to Conservatives — in Britain
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/08/02/jim-messina-signs-on-as-campaign-adviser-to-conservatives-in-britain/
Jim Messina signs on as campaign adviser to Conservatives — in Britain
August 2 at 2:33 pm
Obama’s former campaign manager Jim Messina has signed on as a consultant to Britain’s Conservative Party, helping them in their effort to fend off a challenge from the more liberal Labour Party in 2015.
In an e-mail, Messina said he has “long admired Prime Minister [David] Cameron,” who is fiscally conservative but liberal on other issues including climate change and foreign assistance.
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The news was first reported Friday afternoon by BBC News. The Conservatives, also known as the Tories, are in a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats and have come under sharp attack from the left for taking a series of austerity measures to trim the nation’s deficit. Cameron and his allies appear to be looking outside Britain for political advice. They hired Australian strategist Lynton Crosby in November.
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Messina is not the first Obama adviser to work for Cameron: former White House communications director Anita Dunn, who is now a political consultant in D.C., worked for him in 2010, when the Conservatives successfully unseated Labour.
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New Tory guru Jim Messina linked to homophobic political advert
Former Obama strategist hired by David Cameron embroiled in row over ad used in senate campaign a decade ago
Daniel Boffey
The Observer, Saturday 3 August 2013 20.15 BST
Jim Messina, the former Obama adviser who is now a consultant to the Conservative party. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/AP
David Cameron's new star signing, the election strategist behind President Barack Obama's victories, has become embroiled in allegations of a homophobic past just days into his appointment.
Jim Messina, who managed the Obama campaigns in 2008 and 2012, was on Saturday night dealing with allegations – first made in 2002, repeated in 2012 and now being retold on Twitter – that he was behind what has become known as the most homophobic political advert in US history. Messina was unveiled as a consultant to the Tory party on Friday.
The damaging allegations date from Messina's time as chief of staff for Democrat senator Max Baucus of Montana, just over a decade ago. He allegedly put together a political advert in which a rival candidate, Mike Taylor, was shown applying lotion to a man's face, then appearing to reach towards the man's groin, while a voiceover said: "Not the way we do business in Montana."
The footage of Taylor had been taken from an advert for the politician's hairdressing business. The Denver Post reported at the time: "Only the most naive adult would miss the implication that Taylor is a homosexual … The supposedly inclusive Democrats deftly played on the right's homophobia."
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/04/tory-guru-jim-messina-homophobic-ad-row
