Bragging Rights: Republican Strategist Details Attacks on Democrats That Worked

Two of DC's top Senate rivals have lunch, without a fight breaking out.
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

Sitting just inches from his Democratic counterpart, Republican strategist Rob Collins bragged Thursday about two of his party's recent opposition research hits on Senate candidates, and in the process offered a glimpse on how a couple of political scoops came to be published.

One was a front-page New York Times story from July that exposed how Senator John Walsh of Montana had plagiarized chunks of his final paper for the Army War College. A GOP researcher–the same one who helped call into question the authenticity of Elizabeth Warren's claims of Native American heritage during her 2012 Senate campaign–read Walsh's paper and was surprised to see "it was very pro-Bush" and "neo-con," said Collins, executive director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The researcher put the paper through a plagiarism-detection program that scours the Internet for blocks of similar text and "the entire last five pages turned bright red," he said. The Army War College has since revoked Walsh's Master Degree, and the Democrat decided not to seek reelection.