Fritz Wenzel: Reporter Who Suppressed GOP Scandal Works for Zogby

[OzarkDem]

I've glanced at some recent posts about suspicious Zogby polling numbers and thought it might be a good time to resurrect this little gem of a news story that happened in 2006 about a Toledo Blade reporter who suppressed a news story about the Tom Noe Coingate scandal that could have cost Bush the WH in 2004.

Last year he went to work for Zogby as their Director of Communications - a GOP "inside" guy on the job at Zogby. Just sayin'.

From Salon Magazine
Saving Ohio

Did a reporter with GOP ties suppress a story that could have cost Bush the White House?

Oct 6, 2005 | In April 2005, the Blade newspaper of Toledo, Ohio, began publishing a remarkable series of articles about a well-connected Republican donor, Tom Noe, chair of the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign for Lucas County, which encompasses Toledo. The Blade, which had won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting in 2004, discovered that Noe, a Toledo coin dealer, was investing $50 million for the state through the novel practice of coin speculation: buying and selling rare coins to turn a profit. Noe, the Blade revealed, could not account for $10 million to $13 million in the fund.

...

But Bush's reelection may have been made possible by a Blade reporter with close ties to the Republican Party who reportedly knew about Noe's potential campaign violations in early 2004 but suppressed the story.

According to several knowledgeable sources, the Blade's chief political columnist, Fritz Wenzel, was told of Noe's potential campaign violations as early as January 2004. But according to Blade editors, Wenzel never gave the paper the all-important tip in early 2004.

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/10/06/ohio/index.html


Fritz Wenzel works for Zogby

http://www.heartlandpolitics.com/

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2007/211107_beat_hillary.htm

On behalf of all Ohioans, I apologize for the human garbage that keeps floating from this state into the halls of political power and influence.

On edit: I'm not defending any particular Dem candidate, just bringing this to light. Expect the same from Zogby and others for any Dem.

[mod mom]

1. OMG OzarkDem, we're on the same wavelength. I just researched this story as

I couldn't find my file on wenzel, to post on Autorank's thread.

BTW Wenzel's son is a upward mobile operative w/in the Ohio GOP.

[mod mom]

2. Here's info on his son:

However, as it turns out, both Wenzel and his son had personal relationships with the Noes, who even attended the son's wedding.

In fact, in March 2004, a couple of months after Wenzel got the tip, his son was elected to the Lucas County Republican Central Committee, and from April 15, 2005, to the end of May 2005, Wenzel's son was on the payroll of the Ohio Republican Party.

http://www.counterpunch.org/pringle06092006.html

[OzarkDem]

5. Thanks, I'll bookmark this one

Zogby seems to straddle the fence, sometimes putting out good, scientifically sound polling, but other times putting out stuff that is obviously skewed.

I think its all about the money for him as it seems to be for an increasing number of pollsters (Mason Dixon, Rasmussen, Gallup, and our good friends at U of Cincinnati - the Ohio Poll).

Pollsters for hire perfected their art during the 2006 midterms, I expect they will be much more active in 2008. And the news media knows and is complicit.

[mod mom]

7. Mark my words-uncover the truth about Lucas County and you uncover the truth

about the '04 stolen election!

[OzarkDem]

10. Its the mother lode

I'm convinced (and I'm sure Dann is also) that it goes all the way back to the WH and the national GOP campaign money laundering machine.

[OzarkDem]

3. Toledo Dems know who he is, no?

It took me a while to dig around to find his name, but I recall how he did an "inside job" at the Blade to keep the Coingate story from coming to light in 2004.

What is his son's name?

[mod mom]

4. PJ:

Shoptalk: More Dread in Ohio

By Joe Strupp

Published: August 01, 2005

The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, is on top of the newspaper world, thanks to its "Coingate" reports (see feature, this issue). But while the paper is rightly thumping its chest with each new revelation, it's also coming under some scrutiny — not for what it has printed, but for what it may not have. Rumors swirl around a veteran Blade scribe, former political reporter Fritz Wenzel. Nothing at all is proven, but it's worth recalling the dangers — even if it's just in public perception — of jumping from political campaigning to political reporting and back again.

Wenzel, a longtime GOP campaign worker in Oregon, spent 10 years on the Blade politics beat before returning to the world of political consulting in May, virtually the day after he left the paper. One of the key contacts he made along the way was the man now at the center of the Coingate accusations, Tom Noe, a major Republican fund-raiser who attended the wedding of Wenzel's son, P.J., a state GOP employee. Noe's wife, Bernadette, even praised Wenzel during a GOP Lincoln Day Dinner this spring. "It was obvious that was a Republican, he never hid the fact," Dennis Lang, interim chair of the Lucas County Republican Central Committee, told me last month. "But his work stayed in neutral ground."

Not according to the Lucas County Democratic Party, which devoted a page on its Web site to blasting Wenzel for alleged inaccuracy and bias. Suspicions about partisan leanings were further fueled when Wenzel signed on as media strategist for Jean Schmidt, the GOP nominee for an open Cincinnati-area congressional seat that voters will fill in a special August election (she won a primary on June 14). Disclosure records show Wenzel received $30,000 from Schmidt's campaign on May 16, the day his last column for the paper appeared, and three days after he left the Blade. He got another $30,000 from those coffers a week later, according to records. Part of the money went to media buys.

Wenzel's career change also renewed rumors, so far unsubstantiated, that his ties to Noe and the GOP may help explain why he not only failed to uncover Coingate but also a related Noe scandal involving alleged illegal funneling of contributions to President Bush's 2004 campaign. Several Blade editors told me they'd heard rumors that Wenzel learned as early as January 2004 about a federal investigation into Noe's alleged illegal donations, none of which emerged in the press until this past spring.

-snip
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/magazine/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000991071

SOMEWHERE I HAVE A FILE ON HIM.

[OzarkDem]

6. I remember watching the Blade every day

after the Coingate scandal first surfaced, waiting for something more to break. Then the Blade got really quiet. All the Ohio dailies did, for what, 3 or 4 months at least.

Blade was the one that broke the story, then sat on it. When I saw this guy was going to Zogby, I really knew the fix was in.

I pray every day that Marc Dann will be able to someday bring all of Coingate to light.

[mod mom]

8. I don't expect to see it from that angle-my hope is still w Conyers & the House

Judiciary Committee. They have been willing to look at the evidence-Dann, not so much.

[mod mom]

11. This is interesting on ole PJ:

-snip

His son, P.J. Wenzel, was elected to the Lucas County GOP central committee while Bernadette Noe, wife of Tom Noe, was party chairman.

According to county board of election records, P.J. Wenzel was elected a precinct committeeman in the March 2, 2004, elections, but he was never sworn into the central committee and never served because he had moved to Columbus before Election Day.

P.J. Wenzel was on the payroll of the Ohio GOP in the spring of 2005.

According to Ohio Republican Party records, he was paid $5,385 in April and May, 2005, by the state party. He also received $30,549 from the Republican National Committee between April and November, 2004, while his father was covering the presidential race for The Blade.

-snip
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060528/NEWS08/605280346

WHY DID HE RECEIVE $30 G FROM THE RNC BETWEEN APRIL -NOVEMBER 2004? IT SAYS HE WAS ON THE PAYROLL OF THE REP PARTY IN THE SPRING. OF 2005.

[OzarkDem]

12. Good question

and why did Fritz go to work for Zogby?

[UTUSN]

9. K&R #4!1 n/t

[Bluebear]

13. and 5!

[OzarkDem]

15. Thanks!

Just raising awareness...

[JimboDem]

14. Zogby's "Director of Communications "

yuppers. This should prove interesting. Thanks for the post.

:kick:

[OzarkDem]

16. ..