Meet John Kasich's Virginia-based astroturfing blogger: ThirdBasePolitics

This is just sad.  Ohio conservative blogsphere is so dead Republican candidates need Virginia-based consultants to pose as Ohio bloggers to help them spread their message.

Just two days ago, I was heavily criticized by an "Ohio" blogger at ThirdBasePolitics for calling John Kasich out on his tax scam and how he's already walking away from his only campaign promise so far: to repeal Ohio's income tax.

Well, it turns out that ThirdBasePolitics knows more about what's going on in Foggy Bottom than Fairfield, Ohio, and the whole site is essentially a fraud.

Fraud #1:  It's not an Ohio-based blog.   Although it lists a number of contributors, only one person writes there.  A person who goes by the screenname "DJ Tablesauce."  As Tim Russo at Bloggerinterrupted points out, DJ's own profile lists "Arlington, VA" in his profile as his residence.

Eric at Plunderbund found out that "DJ" was really Jon Keeling, a Defense & Space Consultant for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  Keeling scrubbed his LinkedIn Profile after Eric's post, but you can still view it on GoogleCache (damn, the googles, they see everything!)

Fraud #2:  Keeling is hardly just a supportive conservative for Kasich.  Before he was promoted to Legislative Assistant to then-freshman Congressman Pat Tiberi, Keeling worked for, you guessed, John Kasich.

Probably should have disclosed that obvious bias, pal.  I know I disclosed I used to work for Ted Strickland when I began blogging about him.

Fraud # 3:  But, Modern, his website boasts that the Washington Post called his blog "One of Ohio's best political blogs!"  Well, first, one must be a blogger in Ohio to run one of Ohio's best political blogs.  And second, the Washington Post didn't say that, Chris Cillizza of the WaPo did, but with a very key caveat that suggests how non-scientific the process was:

After sifting through hundreds upon hundreds of recommendations that came in via the Fix comments section,  Twitter and email, we are finally ready to unveil our list of the best political blogs in each of the 50 states.

...

This list is solely the work of Fix users and is entirely based on their recommendations.

In other words, it's more accurate to say that readers of Chris Cillizza voted for Keeling's site to be called one of the best in Ohio.  Readers, like, oh..... Keeling?  I mean, I'm glad the readers of the Fix like BSB, too, but it's kind of a leap to go from that and say the paper itself called your blog one of best political blogs in Ohio.  Regardless, since you aren't an Ohio blogger, the WaPo thing seems obviously flawed. (And how sad that the only Ohio conservative blog to get mentioned isn't even done by an Ohio blogger.)

Fraud # 4: His Twitter profile says he's a "former Ohio campaign hack."  I bet we're one campaign finance report away from finding out this guy is a paid consultant by the Kasich campaign.  It's only a matter of time.

So where does that leave us?  A Virginia-based consultant/former Kasich staffer is running blog posing as an Ohio political blog that just happens to be primarily focused on promoting and defending the candidacy of John Kasich while also hypocritically demanding that the government privitize everything, including getting out of the student loan business, from a guy who appears to have made a career of sucking from the government teat.

And that's just what we've learned from Google today!

I don't respond to D.C.-area consultants who think they know more about Ohio than the people who actually work and live here who are astroturfing for their old/current(?) boss.